Kitsap Caucus

It took several hours to make the connection that I was getting perfect perspective for the day we were celebrating. I was at my last assignment for the day, interviewing a couple that would perform the next. Later I was off to a barbecue at friends before going to the ballpark to watch the fireworks.

The message driven home was one I first remember hearing in 1976. America was celebrating its bicentennial then and everyone seemed intent on seeing America. A man at my church talked to us kids and told us if we really wanted to learn about America, we should go see the rest of the world. A few years later I did, living in South America for a time. I saw what he meant.

On my way down and on the way back I flew through the Miami airport. On the way down I thought it was a dump. On the way back I thought it was glorious. Some of that was because I came through a new part of the airport when I came back, but the contrast in perspective was more because of my time away than it was the smell of fresh carpet.

On Saturday I spent a fair amount of time interviewing Ivan and Olive Bisaso, who accompanied the children who sang Sunday at the Central Kitsap Presbyterian Church.

One of the benefits of their trip over here, and other parts of the world, is to take home the good things they notice here. Olive Bisaso was exuberant about the American respect for life. She said we care for everyone, not just the most able. Handicapped people have special stalls for them in bathrooms. The elderly have nice places to live. People when they drive generally obey the signs they read.

She was deadly serious about the last one. A stop sign means little to some drivers in Uganda, she said.

So on July Fourth I received firsthand evidence of how much we have to celebrate and be grateful for just by being born here or moving here. We’ve got problems, no doubt. We focus on them, sometimes so much that we forget some of the good things. We’ve got a spotted history when it comes to how we treat each other. I’ve said this before, though. No one lives up their ideals. Still, this place is great.

Then on Sunday, and Saturday for that matter, I got a message that drove home the “Be it ever so humble” message.

On Sunday, driving back from the Watoto performance, KPLU played three versions of a song called “Tobacco Road.”

I heard some interesting lyrics in the second version, the Muddy Waters rendition, then reheard them from Edgar Winter.

“I despise you ’cause you’re filthy
but I love you ’cause you’re home.”

It made me think of my feelings about Los Angeles. I grew up there, but choose to live here. When I return to Los Angeles, I find it overridden with concrete, the sky dingy and the heat repressive. Still, I love going there. The Pacific Northwest is home by choice. Los Angeles is home by birth, and still feels like home. Good thing both places are in the same country.

When I was in Chile I once joked to a group about that country becoming the 51st of the United States. I was astounded to find out that people there didn’t want that. I envisioned a boatload of problems going away with Chile’s incorporation into the United States. They saw Chile not being Chile.

Ivan Bisaso on Saturday repeated the line “East or West, home is best,” when they talked about how eager the Watoto children were to go home. The kids confirmed it. They wanted to see their mothers.

So, OK, one of the reasons the United States is great is because it’s home. I’ll admit that. Nontheless, I got a great lesson on the Fourth of July that it’s also great here because there’s so much that can be called “good.” In many ways we Americans do live up to the American ideals.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 2:21 pm by Steven Gardner and is filed under Random Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.