A Refreshing Day

America isn’t the greatest country anymore, but it can be again.

It’s a Sunday morning in my little town; it’s 66 degrees, the sun is shining, and there is not a cloud in the sky.

I got coffee at the local coffee shop, chatted with a tourist who loves this town, and would love to be here all the time. To which I told them, You can do it, and later, when you are old you might say that the idea of going to Highlands was not the best idea, or later, when it is too late, you might say, I wish I had tried. Your choice.

It’s all about choice.

I then went to the town park, took a seat with the sun shining in my face, and a working manuscript in my hands. Inspiration was coming so fast that I could not stop it.

At 11 am, the church bells began to ring, calling the people to service. We are a small, diverse community with more churches per capita than I think anywhere in the country. Pick a denomination, and there is a church somewhere here on the mountain. Church isn’t my cup of tea; I believe, but I don’t need walls to talk to God, whomever SHE may be. I believe God is female; otherwise, why are men as a species so screwed up?

As I sat reading and editing, an older man walked by walking his tiny dog, and I thought, Not for me, I want a DAWG, a lab or husky, a dog that both loves and defends. I had one once, good memories flashed in my mind. He’s gone now, and I still miss him.

There was a father throwing a football to his son. The father was definitely not a quarterback —perhaps a lineman at one time, who has long since lost the war on weight —but his 8- or 9-year-old sonson didn’t notice, and was having a great time catching the ball and winning the imaginary game.

A young couple with their son and daughter are there. The little 4-year-old girl and her dad were playing hide-and-seek. Dad wasn’t really hiding, but the daughter thought she was a great hunter, nonetheless. Mom was chasing the two-year-old in a game of ‘I’m running, and you can’t catch me, Mom.’ Adorable is one word for it all.

There was a Latino family at a picnic table, father, mother, and two children eating lunch, and a lady was casually walking down the paths. She wore a scarf on her head that screamed religious.

While all this was going on, a police car arrived, stopped in the parking area in front of us, and an officer exited the vehicle. I know the officer —an imposing woman whom you do not want to think she can’t handle things. Trust me, she can. She walked over to the Latino family. I could see them talking, then both laughing at something I could not hear. She then walked over to the father playing, what some might say, was football, picked up an errant pass, and threw it to the son, who promptly dropped to the ground, then picked it up and ran for the imaginary touchdown. It was twelve o’clock, and one of the church’s bells played a song using the bells, and the town hall bell rang out twelve times. As the officer went to her patrol car, she waved to the woman with the scarf who waved back, entered her patrol car, and then proceeded with her duties of protecting the town’s people.

While I was there, a kicked soccer ball bounced into me a few times, the football crashed into a group who were sitting on the ground chatting, people with all types of dogs walked through the park, with an occasional bark from a small dog at a large dog—why is it that small dogs seem so aggressive? And in all that time, there was not one harsh word, no one asking for their IDs or papers, no one minded the errant ball dropping into their space. It was a perfect day. It was America.

There was no military checkpoint, no one asking for IDs, no ominous military vehicle parked to show their presence just to scare you. There were no protests, no counter-protests, no hostility of any kind. It was for me what America can still be: a place where people live and play together, where their mere right to exist is not questioned by a government masked man with a gun. Where weak-minded people try to make themselves look big and powerful by oppressing others, taking away their rights, and forcing them to fight back rather than rolling over and allowing their liberty to be taken away.

Yes, there is crime in the world. Our little town has its share, but our police force knows how to handle it with both professionalism and respect. Respect for personal rights and the professionalism to do the job as it was intended. We don’t need any military presence to control crime, and there is certainly no ‘insurrection’ here —or, in my experience, anywhere in America except Washington, D.C., on 6 January 2021.

America is in peril; there is a movement to take away our freedoms and install a regime of control. Control over who we love, what we know of the past, what we read, and who has the freedoms that the U.S. Constitution guarantees, and whom hundreds of thousands have given their last full measure of devotion to protect.

On this one sunny Sunday afternoon, in a small town in the mountains, there was peace, joy, and civility. I pray that others had this day, and that all of us will have these days again and again. That those that seek to gain power, whose mental capabilities are so limited that they can only make their candle look brighter by making others look dimmer, who would rather take the easy road and destroy than take the hard, creative path and build, who would rather eliminate those who look and believe differently from them rather than learn from them and embrace the differences.

America is not, nor has it ever been, perfect, but we have always moved towards a better life for all. We moved slowly, but we did move forward, remembering the past, learning from it, and embracing all those who wanted a better life. I cannot say that about our current leaders, but I can say, with assurance, that the people of this country will not kneel, and America will rise once more and again become the “Shining City on a Hill.” To borrow a line from a great writer, ‘America isn’t the greatest country anymore, but it can be again.’

The Office of the President of the United States is all about honor and integrity, and Donald Trump has none. Thus ends the lesson.