DO I LIVE IN AMERICA? April 12, 2024

A recent Los Angeles Times survey reported that many people outside California believe the Golden State “is not really America.” My experience tells me the opposite.

I can’t echo Johnny Cash’s song title, “I’ve Been Everywhere.” But despite a cloistered upbringing in “not-America” New York City, I’ve seen a good deal of our geographic and cultural diversity. For starters, Army service sent me to Alabama, Georgia and Texas, where I spent an additional four years as a civilian in San Antonio. 

I’ve driven a good deal of Texas and across it to New Mexico, Arizona and California. Also from Los Angeles up to San Francisco. Then across the continent to New York. Other jaunts took me from New York back to San Antonio, and from Detroit to San Francisco. What does the real America look like? Take your pick: prairie. desert, mountains, forests, endless fields of wheat and corn, bayous with cypress trees draped in Spanish moss. 

Landmarks everywhere. Niagara Falls and Waimea Falls. The Harahan Bridge over the Mississippi connecting Memphis and Arkansas. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis. California offers the Golden Gate Bridge, the Transamerica Pyramid and the HOLLYWOOD sign.

Visits to “not-America” (blue) cities have taken me to (partial list) Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Houston, Austin, New Orleans, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland—Oregon and Maine—and Seattle. Do I put Phoenix, Santa Fe and Asheville here? Pittsburgh? Tucson? Also “real” American cities (red or reddish) like Buffalo, Erie, Nashville, Dallas, Baton Rouge and Anchorage. Are Cleveland, Cincinnati and San Diego purple? 

Everywhere, I’ve met good people, all of them “real Americans.” 

Labels undermine our story. America’s cities, suburbs and rural regions each host a variety of political and cultural beliefs. Blue San Francisco? “Liberals” are engaging in a widening range of thinking from progressive to moderate. 

California hardly represents a monoculture, topographically or human. A thousand miles of beaches and cliffs line our Pacific shores. We raft rivers, sail in lakes (Tahoe is breathtaking), ski mountain slopes, hike forests (love those redwoods and sequoias), and help feed the nation and the world thanks to our incredibly fertile San Joaquin and Sacramento Valley farmlands. Urban life varies. Fresno and Sacramento aren’t San Francisco or San Jose. Bakersfield and San Bernadino aren’t L.A. or San Diego. Heck, Pasadena isn’t West Hollywood. 

Sunday, Carolyn and I took our son Aaron and son-in-law Jeremy to brunch to celebrate Aaron’s upcoming birthday. At a waterfront restaurant in Tiburon across the Golden Gate, we enjoyed awesome views of hometown San Francisco, Angel Island, boats and ferries plying Richardson Bay and Racoon Strait. 

Astonishing: Californians love birthdays, weddings, graduations and gatherings in general. We work, worship (some of us) and root for the home team.

Americans’ joys also share a celestial dimension. Carolyn and I watched Monday’s eclipse, partial in California. We thrilled to that bite the moon took out of the sun. We also delighted in TV coverage of the heartland hosting visitors from around the nation and the world to experience the path of totality. The sun and moon shine on us all.

Truth is, we’re all different just the same,

Unfortunately, the United States faces enormous political divides. Too often, these express themselves as claims of cultural legitimacy, even calls to ethnic dominance. 

That’s not living in America.

Please pass on this post.

Order The Short (Pun Intended) Redemptive Life of Little Ned in softcover or e-book from Amazon, barnesandnoble.com or iuniverse.com. Or your favorite bookstore.