What makes a good American?

I have to admit that being born here I take so much for granted, although…having had the advantage of traveling abroad as a young woman it did make me more missing of what we call home, America.

No one has questioned me recently how I think of being an American.

Actually, it has been years, and it was my brother in-law, a Tea Party thought process guy, I think, today as always a far right Republican that always questioned my Liberal ways of thinking.

I met him while still in high school and I am proud to say that my way of thinking then and now has changed very little in what is right or wrong about America.

We all know that many extremist ways of thinking people live here. That is why we refer to them as right or left, odd to me that the most conservative of us are considered “right” thinkers while people like myself are considered “left”, just the idea of those two opposites thinking types makes one seem, by entitlement, being called “right” that they are right, but not by me, got that?

To me it does seem totally wrong that Americans are split into too many extremes, but I do love the fact that we have that, “right”, there’s that word again, hmm?

I suppose being considered on the “left” way of thinking is way better than being called on the “wrong”, although so many on the “right” say that we are!

To anyone not here, i.e. America might be confused now with me talking about rights and lefts in thinking, but believe me when I tell you as an example to think of “right” as very strict parents who’s law is cut and dry, black and white no wiggle room for differences of opinion and “left” parents who say let’s talk about it and truly believe in all matters having grey areas, and that they are open to discussion! Okay, not convinced, free thinkers’ lefties, conventional thinkers’ righties.

And yet some may have a difference of opinion in my simplistic way of trying to make myself clear and they do have that "right", there's that word again, Geez!

Oh, we were talking about, “What makes a good American?”

Sure we all believe in the laws of the land and yet we all interpret them differently, reminds me of the way we all see and read something different in the bible, now that should be bibles, since each religion has their own, don’t they?

But we have very few written down laws of how our government is to be run and sadly, I suppose even though I have visited Washington D.C. many times and studied American History in school I am NOT as knowledgeable as I should be, see being born here kinda makes you forget those things are your responsibility to keep somewhere in your educated brain for future reference, since no one ever knows when you will be quizzed!

Of course not!

I’m not a politician or member of any of the factions that we VOTED in to represent our concerns and biding for us as people of one nation, and yes I will even say under God.

But no one knows that my memory has lapsed due to not using that info as often as perhaps I should be, and having Multiple Sclerosis that affects my brain with lesions causing my cognitive ability to falter, and also having Fibromyalgia causing fibro-fog, as well as being close to sixty-five years young very soon…if I am lucky that is!

We have a wonderful country and since I was lucky enough as a college student to visit many other places in this world I truly missed “my home”, yes America and as Americans it was proven to me just how lucky we are to have what we have…do you really need specificity?

I would not like to compare my needs or precious private feelings with people who live in other lands and LOVE theirs too, and so I will leave that as is, alright?

We Americans are notorious for criticizing others, I really hate to think it is in our make-up of thinking that we are so far superior to others, but at times it can come across like that.

Yes, we are a very proud nation of Americans loving this land of ours and that is the bottom line.

And it annoys me when another American, who has every "right" to speak their mind, but besmirches our president's good name, by saying that he is not a “good” American like the former mayor of NYC Rudy Giuliani had said, and yes he has his right to his opinion but that was very mean spirited to say about our highest office of our land and Rudy would not even apologize and since he IS an American he has that "right" to, not that is.

Being as honest as you can be how many times have you thought about your own imperfections and discussed them, and so our land that we love is NOT perfect either, and there is much room for improvement, but we still, as Americans love this place!

No one and nothing is perfect, correct.

And if not pointed out with what we have to work on to try to achieve betterment of oneself or one’s land how else will anyone know?

I’m just saying…

So in closing, I am an American since the day I was born and before, since both my parents although old had been born here too, 1907 and 1911, respectively.

Their parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe and the UK.

They proved to me that voting was one of the very important ways to be a “good” American, and even in college I wrote a paper on giving eighteen year olds the right to vote way back in 1968-69 when the voting age was twenty-one, it was eventually passed in 1972 when I was turning twenty-two, ha!

But somehow that paper in my mind made me list powerful reasonings why people of that age, eighteen, mine at the time should be allowed to vote, most importantly to me at the time was the Viet Nam War where they could die for their country but not vote for their country, and to me that alone was a good enough reason, of course there were many other reasons as well and I know that I listed a boatload of tried and true people in history that also had wanted it to come to pass, like FDR and JFK two of the many presidents who felt as I did. I received an “A” for that paper that I had researched with all my heart as if in a debate proving my point and in the end I did learn a lot. To this day I have voted every time… so I am a GOOD AMERICAN because my vote should count and it does, barring any hanging chads or other ridiculous mistakes by human flaws that are not unlike all Americans since we are all when it comes down to it just mere mortals, at least I know that I am, I suppose some, like Rudy, feel that they are more than that, ha!

On that note allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask all of you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!