79\u00a0 bar steady 29.95\u00a0 2mph N dew-p0int 60\u00a0 sunrise 6:04 sunset 8:32\u00a0 Lughnasa<\/p>\n
Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon<\/p>\n
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” – Thomas Paine<\/p>\n
What does it mean to be an American?\u00a0 This is the question I’ve set for the Woollies on August 18th, the gathering here.\u00a0 Paine offers a perspective.\u00a0 An American stands with his country in a time of trial, does not flinch from action when the stakes are high.<\/p>\n
We’ve not had times like that often in the American experience, but enough.\u00a0 The revolution.\u00a0 The Civil War.\u00a0 Reconstruction.\u00a0 The Great Depression.\u00a0 WWII.\u00a0 The second Civil War, fought over Civil Rights and our presence in Vietnam.\u00a0 There have been other, less heated moments, still difficult like the temperance fight and women’s suffrage, perhaps the feminist movement’s main time in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.<\/p>\n
Still, when I think of what it means to be an American I trend toward adjectives, vignettes, moments rather than political or cultural conflict.\u00a0 Fireworks on the 4th of July.\u00a0 Yellow school buses.\u00a0 Flickering televisions.\u00a0 Traffic jams.\u00a0 Grocery stores with that over abundance.\u00a0 Kids headed to church in ill-fitting fancy clothes. Norman Rockwell moments.\u00a0 The old barber with the pump chair and the slick black combs in a pink bath surround by glass and topped by shiny metal.\u00a0 Drugstores and soda fountains.\u00a0 The Statue of Liberty.\u00a0 The Lincoln Memorial.\u00a0 The Washington monument.\u00a0 American football on Friday and Saturday nights or Sunday afternoon.\u00a0 Hot dogs.\u00a0 Hamburgers with cheese and bacon and fries.\u00a0 Baseball cards.\u00a0 Comic books.\u00a0 Movies.\u00a0 A bright, sunshiny California dreamin.\u00a0 Surfin USA.\u00a0 The Grand Canyon.\u00a0 The Rocky Mountains.\u00a0 The Catskills.\u00a0 Rip Van Winkle.\u00a0 Hudson River School painters.\u00a0 Walt Whitman.\u00a0 Moby Dick.\u00a0 The Scarlet Letter.\u00a0 Those kind of things.\u00a0 Muscular.\u00a0 Proud.\u00a0 Sacrificial. Sad.\u00a0 Arrogant.\u00a0 Salarymen in gray flannel suits.\u00a0 Barely hanging on to the corporate ladder.\u00a0 Milk in glass bottles.\u00a0 The Alamo.\u00a0 Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett.\u00a0 Log cabins.\u00a0 Maine flannel shirts and lobster.\u00a0 Disney lands.\u00a0 Slave ships.\u00a0 The enslaved.\u00a0 The Emancipation Proclamation.\u00a0 The Monroe Doctrine.\u00a0 The Louisiana Purchase.\u00a0 The Northwest passage.\u00a0 Ice cream and popsicles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
79\u00a0 bar steady 29.95\u00a0 2mph N dew-p0int 60\u00a0 sunrise 6:04 sunset 8:32\u00a0 Lughnasa Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and … Continue reading The Old Barber with the Pump Chair and Slick Black Combs in a Pink Bath<\/span>