Woodsterman had a great piece on the ladies that would welcome the troops heading to war when the train stopped in their town:
For the next 51 months, every single day, women from 125 surrounding communities—some driving 75 miles on rationed gas—met every troop train that passed through. They didn’t have a budget or government funding. They had 55,000 volunteers and a rotating schedule pinned to church basements.
They served six million soldiers.
My Knights of Columbus Assembly (the guys with the funny hats and swords) would go to DFW to welcome the soldiers coming back from Iraq. There were tons of people there with posters, snacks, and whatnot. One of my friends was a cigar smoker. He’d hand out stogies. He gave some to my 5 year old son to hand out. I’ll never forget my son working up the courage to approach one of these guys. He steps in front and holds up a cigar to this huge soldier. I’ll never forget him looking up hopefully, and the soldier looking down, tripping out with a big smile. He took the cigar and shook my son’s hand. My daughter went up to a woman soldier to hand her a bag of cookies, and the soldier dropped to her knees and gave her a huge hug.
Hell, I’m tearing up just remembering the scene.
That’s the America I know.
That’s the America the visitors for the world cup are finding. I love the stories on the news about these folks discovering all the great things about our country. I heard the best line today on the radio box from a German;
If you want to learn to hate America, watch the news. If you want to learn how to love America, drive across it.
Indeed.
There isn’t a small town that I’ve stopped in on the bike where I haven’t struck up a great conversation with a local. with many of them, I look around and think; What a cool town! I could live here.
Nearly all of this country is awesome. The only parts that suck are that we have a small, very vocal, population of retarded perpetual malcontents. They are happy with nothing other than someone else’s misery. That and we have a loot-the-treasury political class that is incompetent, venal, and is only looking to butter their own bread and spread the cheddar to their buddies and sycophants. That won’t last.
In the past, before all the kids moved out and the wife left, we’d be having a barbecue and hanging out. I’d be pickled by mid-afternoon.
Far as celebrating this year, I won’t be. Not for any reason other than as I get older I’m more like my Dad. I’ll go to a cookout if I’m invited, but otherwise hang at home, away from the drunks returning from the celebrations. There’ll be fireworks around and an bit of ‘happy fire’. Can’t afford fireworks? Get the gat out and bust a few caps. That’s how we roll down here.
I’ll take the dogs to the park, go to a thing at the Church, then hang here getting things done. Maybe I do nothing at all.
Inspected By Pat 