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Your Country Needs You
Dear D & K
Your country needs you. It requires something of you. I mean something more than voting. It cries for understanding nearly every day and expects answers to the struggles it faces. Your country is asking you to explore its history, its flaws, its accomplishments, its natural beauty, and it’s asking you to define what it is to be an American at the beginning, the cusp, of a new millennium. Your country is demanding participation.
You both received some basic education about America outside of the classroom. Remember our trips to Washington D.C.? Gettysburg? Washington’s Crossing? We spent a week in the nation’s capital. Together we saw, the Smithsonian museum, the Washington Monument, Arlington National Cemetery, the Vietnam War Memorial, the Korean War memorial, we walked in the city and saw protestors from China, and a large homeless population in the park right across from the White House. And Daniel, you and I sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and I told you about a March on Washington where a man named Dr. Martin Luther King gave a speech titled, “I have a Dream”. I told you that this country struggles and requires help, participation is needed for all Americans to do the right thing. You were ten. I may have laid it on a little heavy, but my heart was in the right place. And both of you at Gettysburg heard stories of a division, separation, and reunion. At Washington’s Crossing you were both enthralled with the large painting and the story behind a Christmas surprise.
We had other vacations, you should know I always tried to balance our activities, remember the Field museum in Chicago? Sue, the giant T-Rex. The Human Being exhibit? And what about Hershey Park? That was a father’s lesson about relaxing, but it came after the hard work of knowing and learning about our country. America is yours. And right now America needs you.
In our household, we never made fun of other people. We never mocked other people’s problems, we never disrespected people that did things differently than us. Your friends were white, black, and brown. And we didn’t talk about the color of skin, we talked about the content of character, hang with the kids who play fare, and hang with the kids who help you back. You both had a lot of fun and a lot of friends.
