In Celebration of America...

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I've started and responded to many discussions about politics and there are some who agree with me on at least some things and there are certainly also some who almost never share my views. However, this isn't in the "Politics" interest because while it's about politics it isn't political. I'm not posting this to praise one candidate or party and attack another. We all know there are problems in America, although in some cases we disagree on what they are and/or how to solve them but I don't want to discuss that - rather I want to CELEBRATE how far we've come and say, with all its warts, I'm proud to be an American - God Bless the USA! I'm 55 years old and I can't believe the changes I've seen in my lifetime. While I was growing up there were virtually no career women on TV, all the leading female characters were stay-at-home moms who could be seen every week serving their husbands and their kids their meals with a sweet smile and sending them out to work and school and greeting them at the door when they came home. My mother was born before women could vote. In my high school yearbook a large percentage of the girls listed "Housewife" or "Homemaker" as what they wanted to be after graduation. Girls were often still told they should take typing and shorthand or maybe do something like go to beauty school so they'd have something to "fall back on", which of course meant if they failed to find a suitable husband. The first election I remember was 1960 when Kennedy shocked the world by being the first Catholic to be elected President. In my small town there were very few "minorities" but, believe it or not, the large number of first generation Italians here were discriminated against and in general treated terribly by some people. Not by me or my family, thank God I wasn't brought up that way at all, but by too many people in the place I call my hometown. My teen years were marred by the war in Vietnam as so many of my friends and classmates ended up being sent there and some never came home and others came home but were never the same. Now it's 2008 and we're in the middle of the most hotly contested Presidential campaigns in years and people are coming out to vote in huge numbers. The young people are voting in numbers that haven't been seen since I first voted when the age was lowered to 18 in 1972 when I was 20. The remaining Presidential candidates include a woman from my own generation whose own mother was born before women could vote, an African American and a Vietnam veteran who was a POW. Earlier in the race, a Mormon and a Latino candidate were running. Many of the candidates, current and former, came from much less than wealthy backgrounds. My grandchildren who are 13 and 11 find nothing at all unusual or surprising about any of this, rather they can't believe there's never been a woman or black President let alone a candidate with a serious chance of winning the nomination and the election. We really have come a long way! Oh, and I almost forgot - my own state of Pa. is going to MATTER in the primary this year! Life is good! Annie