POTR #45 Ameican Stew Pot

PEACE ON THE ROAD
American Stew Pot
November 24, 2008

We are in Rockport, Texas for the rest of November. This is one of the places that we first visited nearly four years ago and we have been here several times since. We are camped in a forest of Live Oak trees. We are becoming familiar with the whole area. It is on a bay that attracts a great variety of birds. This is one of the few places that the whooping cranes winter. They stay away from people so it is necessary to go on a boat or to a wildlife refuge to see them. Between the cranes and the other more common birds and animals this is a fun place to visit. Telephone and Internet communication is very limited for us and that is a drawback to this location but one that we have been able to work around.

One of the big inspirations for writing these POTRs was a statement that I made to a good friend of mine back when I was about to quit working at Newmont. This lady, Susan R. said something to me like, "Send us an e-mail once in a while so we know what you are doing and what you are seeing." My reply back was that I would do just that and once in a while I would put in a bit of my philosophy too. Well it started small with just a few lines, say just a single paragraph, and has grown to several pages and some pictures. There has always been some of my philosophy hidden in the writings but this time I am going to put in a bit more. First I am going to say, "Susan, thank you. You actually gave me a gift which other coworkers enforced and none of you had any idea what it would come to mean to me."

THE SIGN OF FREEDOM TO MANY IMMIGRENTS ON THE EAST COAST

We have been on the road for a bit over four years now. In that time I have seen the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Canadian border, the Mexican border, but never left the soil of the USA. Well maybe technically when I was on the Los Ebanos Ferry I might have stepped on Mexican soil, but it would have been brought on the ferry by the tires of cars, and I never stepped off the ferry. I have visited thirty seven states and my observations have confirmed in my mind some feelings that came to me some years ago. A famous quote that was made at about the time of the great immigration to the USA from all over the world through Ellis Island in the East and Sacramento in the West was made by a person that really did not understand what he was saying. His meaning was good but I think he used the wrong word. The quote is frequently used by many other people that do not really understand what the statement is saying. This country was called "The Great American Melting Pot." In the work that I have done over the years I have melted a good many things in melting pots. I have taken ores from mines and heated the materials till they were liquid and poured them into molds. I have melted ores to produce copper, gold, silver, steel, iron, antimony, glass, lead and other end products. They did not turn out like America. What happened was that when the molten material was poured an ingot was formed that separated into two parts. There was a light material called slag on the top and down at the bottom was the heavy valuable material. On the bottom was the gold, and silver or lead, or steel or whatever we were seeking. Upon one or two occasions there were three distinct and separate layers, but usually only two. We can divide America like that into the Red and the Blue states, the North and the South states, or the majority races and the minority races, or the rich and the poor, and there are a hundred other ways to divide the Americans. But a real melting pot divides into the part you want and the part you don't want. That is not the way I see America. It is not that simple and is not well defined into only two parts. It is much more complex and it is constantly changing.

LOADING CARS FROM MEXICO ONTO THE HAND OPERATED LOS EBANOS FERRY

Anybody that has ever cooked or eaten a stew knows it is different. Each ingredient contributes to the whole and each primarily remains separate. Take one part out and the whole changes add another ingredient and the whole changes again. A stew is a much more accurate description of America. We are a country of many different people that contribute to the whole and yet each people may remain separate. People from different nations came to America and then wrote home and told their friends to come to a land of opportunity. They formed towns or communities that were often nearly ethnically pure. They spoke the language of their youth and made homes and built churches that were like the ones that they left behind. They took on some of the "flavor" of their neighbors, and their children learned to be bilingual and spread their "flavor" outside their community. Then the grandchildren did it even more. Some of those communities still exist with only small changes in over two hundred years. We have come across places where the residents still speak, German, Swedish, Greek, Chinese, French, and several languages that I could not identify. The people that speak English speak many variations. There is Texan, New England, Californian, Midwest, and others. I have heard it said, "Welcome to America. Now speak our language, English. Now wait, English is the language of England. The language of America is the language that was spoken by the Indian, they are the original Americans. The rest of us are immigrants and we brought our language with us. If you think we speak English ask a person from London, England if they think we speak English and they will tell you that they don't know what it is that we speak. What we speak is AMERICAN. It is a language that has taken the best (and occasionally the worst) of many languages and made it unique to the USA. Not only should we be proud of it but we should be proud of its origin. I think that the immigrants also brought with them some of the very best values and skills that the world had to spare. The people who came here, a high percent of the time, were the people that were brave enough to face hardships and not only survive but thrive. There are more people legally coming into the US every year so our stew is changing. Again many of the ones coming in are adding value to our country with hard work and skills. Some of them are criminals, likely a similar percent as between 1492 and 1950 just to pick a broad range of years.

SAN FRANCISCO GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE IN THE SMOKE (try to imagine it is fog)

When I was a child my parents used the term "being in a stew" as a situation where a lot of things were happening, usually a part of it not being good. I think the U.S.A .has spent most of its existence "being in a stew" where along with all the good that happened there was a lot that was not good. From the time that the Europeans first set foot on soil that was to become the USA for the next five hundred years there was a tremendous advancement of technology and what we would call the social situation. But at every period there was exploitation and/or prosecution of some particular people. Who was exploited varied by the region and the year. But in the history of the United States at some time and some place the Indian, the Irish, the Chinese, the Japanese, the African, the Catholic, the Morman the Jew, the uneducated, the poor and probably any other group you can think of was persecuted and exploited. I do not believe that this is something that just happened in America, but rather something that has gone on since before the first man came down from the trees or wherever man first existed. On one hand it is too bad that man has that characteristic. Man is a competitive creature and that characteristic may have been necessary for survival. I am convinced that our competitiveness is part of why man has achieved his dominance above all other creatures and why the U.S.A. is as great as it is.

VIEW OF OF NIAGARA FALL WHICH IS BOTH IN THE U.S.A .AND CANADA

If things continue for a few more years as they have for the last four we will see a lot more of this great country and learn a lot more about the history of the various places we visit. I am often surprised when I come across something that was a footnote in my youth and I paid little attention and now I discover that I am standing where the event took place. The teachers tried to teach me but I resisted. Now I am trying to catch up on what they were teaching. We are often asked if we are going to travel to all fifty of the states. I don't think that there will ever be a road to Hawaii, but someday we may fly there. With the different reports that we hear about the roads to Alaska a visit there is still up for debate. We have heard the roads are very good and we have heard that the roads are very bad for hundred of miles. I suppose that like any road there are times of construction that a speed of over twenty miles an hour is speeding. I will promise that if and when we go there I will tell you about the condition of the roads. But until then I will tell you about some more of the places in the forty eight contiguous states where I can easily drive and hopefully I will be able to take some pictures that you will enjoy.

Till later this is Doug of
Peace On The Road