United We Stand

I don't recall taking any American history classes at Gage Park, but I got a lot of that stuff in elementary school. Of course they gave us the sanitized age appropriate version. I've learned more about it on my own over the years, but that's just because I find it interesting. I never really studied it, just picked up bits and pieces here and there. I've probably forgotten more history than most people have ever learned. That's the problem, I've forgotten it, but I understand that a certain amount of memory loss is normal at my age. What ever did we do before Wikipedia? National Geographic is good for that too but, as you said, they don't give a lot of the details.

When you think about it, it's pretty impressive that the U.S. survived at all. We've certainly had our share of controversy, and more than our share of violence. I don't think that the U.S. was regarded as a world leader until the 20the Century. Before that, Europeans referred to us as "the American experiment", as if they expected us to fold any day now. We could have ended up a collection of banana republics like South and Central America, but we didn't, and Canada didn't either. Maybe you're on to something with your northern versus southern theory. Look at Africa and the Middle East. Maybe all that heat cooks people's brains and makes them cranky.

Of course the Founding Fathers disagreed a lot, but they were somehow able to cobble together a nation that has stood the test of time. Did they know what they were doing, or were they just lucky? There is an old deer hunter's proverb that says it's all about being in the right place at the right time. Of course you can still blow an opportunity but, if you're not in the right place at the right time, you won't even have the opportunity.

Speaking of heat, we got up to 50 today, after plunging to 10 last night. The good news is that it was only 10 above, not 10 below. Of course it won't last forever, but it's supposed to be nice all this week and, by then, we'll be halfway through March. How much more winter could we have left by then? A month, six weeks tops. I can do that standing on my head. Not really, that's just an old army saying.