It's July again - You know what...

• by donr
• 2015-07-04 10:07:05
• General Posting
• 1642 views
• 5 comments

...that means!

It's Birthday month on the North American Continent. Yep, starting at the Arctic Circle & moving south.

1 July our neighbors to the nawth celebrate their birthday - Jessie alerted the World to that auspicious occasion a few days ago.

Today, 4 July, us brash cowboys to the south of the St Lawrence River & Great lakes celebrate our birthday. (Jessie, we gave up on "54 -40 or fight!" well over 100 yrs ago.) We almost speak the same language, drive the same cars (built on both sides of the border), watch a lot of the same TV, share a lot of the same movie & TV actors, & cross what was once the world's longest unfortified border like it isn't even there.

People are still trying to get here all the time - legally of illegally.

Last week I met my third RN from Romania. She & her husband waited 6 years for one of them to "Win the lottery" (As she put it) for a Green card. One of them works for our Cardio, the other two at our allergist. All three husbands were electrical engineers.

All of us on this continent came from somewhere else - except for the relatively small number of "North American Indians." (Can't call them "Native Americans," because I am as native to this continent as they are & my ancestors came from Germany.)

Our pharmacy is like a meeting of the General Assembly of the UN (but they don't squabble as a much). The head pharmacist is an ethnic Indian Indian (to differentiate her from an American Indian), who is really a Canadian by birth, educated in Liverpool, & loves to ski. She is supported by a staff of immigrants from Iran, Kazakstan, Nepal, Jamaica, & even a few folks born in the USA of western European ancestry. There are always a few techs & pharmacy school students in there temporarily as interns.

I have a message for several of our "Elite" universities - We ARE a melting pot. Get over it! We are different from one another. Accept it. We are proud of our individual heritage and want others to know it and all about it. Encourage it. The secret to success in The US is education, hard work & learning our language - witness my pharmacy & the staffs of the Dr's we see.

What we all have in common is that we want to be here - & sort of speak English with varying degrees of proficiency.

No, we are not perfect, but we strive to be better. We have entered an another era best described by Thomas Paine in December 1776 when he wrote "These are times that try men's souls..." But we shall overcome - again.

We have never been 100% unified on anything. AT the time of our Revolution, we were split roughly into thirds - 1/3 wanted independence; 1/3 wanted to stay w/ England; & 1/3 wanted to be left alone.

Eighty years later we were split roughly in half & fought a bloody civil war. It took us far more than 80 yrs to reconcile as a nation,& we are seeing today politicians who still try to incite the false or secondary issues of that era.

We will solve those problems.

Meanwhile, we are who we are. Mostly, we are you.

Donr