{"id":1232,"date":"2014-11-16T15:09:52","date_gmt":"2014-11-16T15:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/?p=1232"},"modified":"2015-02-16T14:47:32","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T14:47:32","slug":"proud-to-be-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/?p=1232","title":{"rendered":"proud to be American"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the year 2002 as a proud, everyday American, I left my career in sales and marketing to better reach my potential by staying home with my computer to act out the role of a wannabe writer\/poet. \u00a0Don\u2019t ask me why, but after watching for the first time the movie: Paris When It Sizzles, starring William Holden and Audrey Hepburn, I was going to someday be a writer of some sort. \u00a0During this period and at least every other Saturday morning at around 6 a.m., I\u2019d meet up with my next door neighbor at the town diner where we lived in Massachusetts. \u00a0These meet ups brought back to mind the tradition of my father who in rural Michigan would go to the local coffee shop to socialize with the town folk.<\/p>\n

Back then the owner of this diner was in her golden years and yet energetically attempted to do most of the cooking. \u00a0On Saturday her daughter would help out, while her son-in-law assisted with the preparation of the food in the backroom of the diner. \u00a0Every so often the son-in-law would emerge from the back of the diner with a tray of freshly cleaned whole potatoes and then would place them in front of his mother-in-law to be cut into home fries. \u00a0Not on like so many occasions in the past the son-in-law would start to engage the patrons in conversation. \u00a0In his expected charismatic manner, he would ask them about their families and lives.<\/p>\n

As patrons, we took this son-in-law\u2019s charismatic manner of entertaining us for granted. We viewed him as just one of the everyday folk that made up the culture of our town. \u00a0Even though I have not lived in this town all of my life, this uniquely vivacious person has been entertaining me even before I moved to Massachusetts. \u00a0When I still lived in Michigan back in the seventies and if you were a baseball fan, especially an ardent Detroit Tiger fan like my grandfather, you would know this player. \u00a0In 1976, he had a 2.34 ERA, a 19-9 record and was the American League Rookie of the Year as the pitcher, Mark \u201cThe Bird\u201d Fidrych.<\/p>\n

To me anyhow, Mark for who he is and all he was, along with his mother-in-law and the patrons of Chet\u2019s Diner represent the potential breadth of our American culture. \u00a0Within this small shell of a local landmark, Chet\u2019s Diner, the spirit and breadth of our national culture thrives proudly with its great potential. \u00a0Within this place of gathering dwells all the same hopes and dreams, the successes and letdowns, coupled with the strength and the endurance that\u2019s characteristic of the everyday, American people. \u00a0Yes that everyday person living out each day with and for family trying to productively contribute to the overall cultural well being of our nation. \u00a0In America, our people, our historical figures and heroes are rooted in this everyday kind of folk proudly aspiring to reach their potential in a variety of ways similar or somewhat different than Mark Fidrych.<\/p>\n

As I sit here today in 2009 to rewrite this piece of a few years back, Mark \u201cThe Bird\u201d Fidrych tragically died in an accident in April of this year. \u00a0 Although the cutting short of Mark\u2019s life is extremely sad, it is the \u201chow\u201d in the way Mark lived his life that will be remembered and embodies a lot of the reason why I\u2019m proud to be American. \u00a0I say this despite the dislike felt by others in the world toward us proud Americans because of the way they perceive the political actions brought forth by our nation\u2019s government. \u00a0They outspokenly have a dislike and cast criticism toward our fellow citizens, which includes the honorable service of our brothers and sisters that defend our country for being proud. \u00a0This limited and bias view of why Americans are a proud people is unduly misplaced in my opinion and I think mainly due to a lack of understanding about the ideals of our people. \u00a0For them to truly know and speak about and then judge proud Americans, they must separate us, the everyday folk or people from the veneer of government and politics. \u00a0To do so they must openly walk and experience without the stain of bias the highways and byways that literally breathe the spirit representative of the heart and soul of our nation. \u00a0They must have the want and sincerity to truly know the reasons behind we the people as everyday Americans, are so proud.<\/p>\n

To my fellow everyday Americans, I can only say I\u2019m still proud to be American. \u00a0My saying this is not some emotional and unfounded reaction that\u2019s in denial of past and recent events surrounding our country. I have freely and openly walked and experienced the highways and byways that literally breathe a spirit representative of the heart and soul of our nation. \u00a0It is because I am free filled with liberty that I am able to be fully aware of and appreciate the type of people that make up the American cultural landscape. \u00a0I know many of us are fully aware of the responsibility associated with the actions of our government and don\u2019t shirk or take flippantly our responsibility as a citizen. \u00a0We stay active as citizens, even if we don\u2019t fully agree with our past and\/or current governmental actions as a nation. I know despite our feelings or wants and opinions, we through republic representation do suffer limitations. \u00a0Limitations as to our influence on those or our ability to control those that are elected into office, as well as the electoral process in selecting which administration should lead our government. \u00a0I also know from personal observation and cooperative experience that we are a concerned, caring, loving and generous people. \u00a0As humanitarians we take the lead not only amongst our own people, but throughout the world as well.<\/p>\n

No matter our perceived shortcomings as a nation, it is our commonality as everyday folk or people that makes our nation something to be proud of and what it is today. \u00a0As well as being the very backbone of what gives us the strength and the endurance to be what we can be proud of in the future. \u00a0As long as we keep trying to proudly reach our full human potential, we can overcome any obstacle placed before us. \u00a0Others as a part of human nature will continually try to make us feel guilty about our actions and the setbacks we may suffer. \u00a0We are no doubt fully aware of the misery we the people inflicted on others during the founding of our nation to acquire such a hope as freedom and liberty for our family. We also know full well what we as a people have had to do to preserve and sustain our hopes and dreams since the beginning of our country. \u00a0The humbling reality of it all, well as I was raised and so taught, is that Americans have had to be a proud people. \u00a0This is due to our struggle to survive, to do whatever it takes to save our family in the past and over the years as a people predisposed with a disposition from once having to flee servitude and oppression. \u00a0We the people once the commoners, the everyday folk have come to know all too well within the struggle to pursue our ideals, hopes, and dreams, the frailty and shortcomings of our humanity; thereafter being revealed on to us as a people as our lessons to be learned resultant from our actions. \u00a0America tends to be looked upon as \u201cthe\u201d sole superpower in the world, as the one to be blamed if lacking in example. \u00a0We the everyday folk or people have somehow in the minds of others, appear to be technologically advanced, successful, materially prosperous and therefore deemed with the stature of omnipotent\/omnipresent.<\/p>\n

The reality of it all when we get right down to it is Americans as our history of acts reveal are not much different in many ways than any other human being or nation trying day in and day out to go on and survive. \u00a0It is within the struggle for our humanity as a nation and the principles as a country for which we measure ourselves daily, is why I\u2019m proud, as we say to be American. \u00a0In the light of such expectations and in all humility, as a citizen of my country I\u2019m fully aware that Americans as a collective nation fall short of the expectations we’ve set before ourselves. \u00a0We the people, that everyday American have the same right to be proud of our cultural style and manner, as any other nation or people have a right to be proud or not of their own cultural style and manner. \u00a0America, whether some superpower or not. \u00a0No matter if made up of everyday humans, folk or people full of imperfections. Daily to me anyhow, the spirit and breadth of our national culture that thrives proudly with its great potential, is found to be encapsulated in the small shell of Chet\u2019s Diner if one cares without bias to find it there. \u00a0It is those like Mark \u201cThe Bird\u201d Fidrych, who in life and death reminds me of why I\u2019m proud to be American and why I\u2019m so inspired to write about it and defend the merits of it.<\/p>\n

“I’m proud to be American because I have walked and experienced the highways and byways that literally breathe the spirit representative of the heart and soul of my nation; for all those who dislike me for being a proud American, you’ll have to learn to live with it or try to truly know the reasons behind we the people as everyday Americans, are so proud.”<\/p>\n

\"Picture3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Words by \u00a0 ~Keith Alan Hamilton~<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the year 2002 as a proud, everyday American, I left my career in sales and marketing to better reach my potential by staying home with my computer to act out the role of a wannabe writer\/poet. \u00a0Don\u2019t ask me why, but after watching for the first time the movie: Paris When It Sizzles, starring … Continue reading “proud to be American”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wisstorytelling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1236,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions\/1236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}