Let’s start at the beginning with the foundation of what makes this country great. Our spirit. We’re a conglomeration of peoples, living together in one country, working for the ‘greater good’ and we’re the greatest success story the world has ever know.
And the reason we do it all – our kids. Not just our own kids, but for all the kids of this great country who will one day grow up and take over the reins from those of us trying to make it all work today.
This country has been through a tough history in our short existence. We’ve seen wars and trials of our souls that have wrenched us down to the very fiber of our existence. Yet, through it all, we’ve survived and come out stronger on the other side. It’s who we are. There's a reason we are ‘the ones the rest of the world looks to’ - it’s our indomitable spirit and ‘can do’ attitude. We get dragged through the mud from time to time, but in the end we emerge as ‘the hero’ at the end of the day.
At the core of our country driving us all are our kids. We want them to learn what we were taught about our country, we want them to have a better life than we had and we want them to take over from us and go forward in the world with the same vision we have of the greatness of America. Though they learn the basics of reading and writing in our schools (we’ll leave that debate for another day), the essence of ‘being American’ is learned with their families and neighbors. We start young taking them to parades and events that etch the American feeling into their heads. Ball games in the summer, Fourth of July fireworks that are always larger than life, Thanksgiving featuring pilgrims and native American Indians and holidays that are all about families and traditions. As the years go by we take them to Little League or ballet classes, recitals, plays, karate, soccer or any one of a laundry list of activities that gets them interacting with each other outside of a structured classroom. In those activities are the foundations that form their impressions for a lifetime of joining the American community.
From us the kids learn the important lessons that are never put down in a book. As a father, an uncle and now (I shudder to think where the years have gone) a grandfather I've watched some extrememly wonderful kids grow up and now they are teaching those same lessons to their kids. It came home to me the hardest the other day when I heard my son say something I remember my grandfather saying. It made me smile with an overwhelming happiness and sad at the same time. My son was held in the arms of my grandfather once before my grandfather died. The most my son heard Grandpa say was, “That’s some boy.” Yet, the very things Grandpa spent years teaching me – and there was considerable doubt I was learning – were the very things I heard coming out of my son’s mouth. Grandpa would have been proud.
As I look at the kids in this country today I see the best of what we were and what we will be. Our kids strive to be the best they can be at what they do and we encourage them. For some it comes easy. They’re the naturals. For others they have to work harder to get there. All the time, though, they’re striving to be the best. We want to be the one stepping to the plate in the bottom of the nine with the bases loaded, two out and trailing by three. We are a country of heroes in waiting.
It’s on the fields, in the dance studios and dojos all across the land our kids learn the spirit they are going to take forward into the future to carry on when all of us alive today have passed on. Watching the hustle-bustle of youngsters learning their sport or developing their talents I am amazed and impressed by how much of life our kids learn in such a short time. They, like all who had gone before them, had no idea they were learning the lessons, of course, but it was evident in their demeanor the lessons were being learned.
The lessons? What are they really learning? They are learning the basic skills to be the heart and soul of America. And they were being taught in teaching’s oldest forum – under the wing of their parents and families who learned it from their parents.
I have to admit that when I was a youngster many years ago – going through the same anguishes our kids are suffering now, facing the same anxieties over whether or not I was going to be good enough to make the starting line-up or if I had practiced my trumpet enough to be ready for the concert, struggling with stage fright to go in front of the crowd and competing against my friends and family to win – I had no idea what I was learning either. It’s only as I look back that I realize I was learning everything I was going to need to know to succeed in the highly competitive business world and to understand what is important in America today. I have been to all corners of our country working in management for a major corporation that if I put its name here you would recognize immediately and could even give me their advertising line. Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Miami and Atlanta are on that list now – and being able to be successful in all those cities comes back to the fundamental skills I learned right out there on those fields of my youth. All the basic elements our kids will need in life are there, and these kids exemplify what this country has always been all about - the freedom and will to be the best you can be.
As I look around me I feel none of the fear over our future that some are attempting to beat into Americans day in and day out. Instead, I feel a lump grow in my throat as the pride wells inside me. This is America at its finest. These are the faces that will take us forward to a bright future and I have every confidence that they will use their experience - as those who have gone before them - to continue keeping America the "shining light on the hill - the beacon of freedom to the world."
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