Patriotic

The older I get, the more patriotic I feel when July fourth rolls around. I don't know if it's because I'm getting old enough to really appreciate what I have, or if it has to do with the growing amount of time I've been able to spend outside our country. Traveling really makes clearer the blessings we have as Americans.

I took my parents to a rodeo in Bulverde, TX last night. They were celebrating the fourth on the third, so there was a patriotic theme. My favorite part was the singing of The Star Spangled Banner. I don't know who started the singing (someone official, as it's something they usually do before a rodeo), but the entire crowd (myself included) started singing along. It was a moment of unity for everyone in the stands, in spite of our differences, to recognize and appreciate how truly blessed we are. There was a reading-I'm including the text below though I'm not sure who wrote it. The website I found attributes it to John Mitchum. What they played sounded like John Wayne. A moment in my life for cowboy poetry that can only be rivaled by a recitation of "I Love a Sunburnt Country" somewhere on a ranch outside of Gladstone, Queensland.

AMERICA, WHY I LOVE HER

You ask me Why I Love Her?
Well, give me time and I'll explain.
Have you seen a Kansas sunset
Or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou
Down Louisiana way?
Have you watched a cold fog drifting
Over San Francisco Bay?
Have you heard a bobwhite calling
In the Carolina pines,

Or heard the bellow of a diesel
At the Appalachia mines?
Does the call of Niagara thrill you
When you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder
At her Massachusetts shore,
Where men who braved a hard new world
First stepped on Plymouth's rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll
Along a New York City dock?
Have you seen a snowflake drifting
In the Rockies, way up high?

Have you seen the sun come blazing down
From a bright Nevada sky?
Do you hail to the Columbia
As she rushes to the sea,
Or bow your head at Gettysburg
At our struggle to be free?
Have you seen the mighty Tetons?
Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you seen the Mississippi
Roll along Missouri's shore?

Have you felt a chill at Michigan
When on a winter's day
Her waters rage along the shore
In thunderous display?
Does the word "Aloha" make you warm?
Do you stare in disbelief
When you see the surf
Come roaring in at Waimea Reef?
From Alaska's cold to the Everglades,

From the Rio Grande to Maine,
My heart cries out, my pulse runs fast
At the might of her domain.
You ask me Why I Love Her?
I've a million reasons why:
My Beautiful America,
Beneath God's wide, wide sky.

~ John Mitchum ~

So there you have it. Plenty of reasons to love our great country.