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Reflections February 2012

Life Is for Living

Message from a Snowman

By Neil Wyrick

We are a very interesting group of people in this neighborhood with some very definite opinions on anything and everything – and I've been listening in.

It’s a wonderful wintery day and I've been doing what I started to do the day the little boy constructed me. Watching and listening to all the people inside the nearby homes and walking past me on the sidewalk.

It's deliciously cold and that keeps me from having that melted, bedraggled look that sometimes happens after a warm snap. I am the spiffiest, jauntiest, snowman for miles. I have a great big smile made up of three peppermint sticks, two small pine cones for ears, an orange elongated carrot for a nose and two shiny, bright blue eyes my little four-year-old construction engineer stole from his mother's button box.

We are a very interesting group of people in this neighborhood with some very definite opinions on anything and everything – and I've been listening in. It's easier when they are walking by or talking as they shovel their walks.

Recently, because of all the talk about immigration, they've been talking about why America really is a great place to live.

Joe, the insurance salesman, was saying that he was sick of people always talking about families in America falling apart. He admitted that there are a lot of divorces but kept arguing that there are still a lot of healthy, happy families.

Bill, the carpenter who I have found has a heart of gold, keeps talking about how Americans actually give three-and-a-half times more per capita than the French, seven times more than the Germans and 14 times more than the Italians.

Jose is bilingual and argues that America's multi-lingual background has always been what has made this great nation great. Jose admits there are problems with some people not happy with immigration enforcement and he understands. "Oh well," he says, " even when immigration was taking place within the law there was trouble with the Italians and Irish 100 years ago and that all worked out.”

The one thing that bothers me is that I am not mobile when I would love to be able to take off for places like Minneapolis or Anchorage or other safe-for-snowmen places. I'd actually like to rest under a palm tree in Miami except I know I wouldn't last very long. America is so diverse because of its gigantic proportions.

I listened in on a conversation between two young people yesterday: they were talking about their future and how, even if things could be better, America still was the land of opportunity.

I love the particular American holiday, Thanksgiving, though for me to celebrate it requires that early snow.

I watched a moving van pull up yesterday. Our neighbors next door are moving halfway across the country. He has a new job. He didn't have to get a permit to travel or switch jobs or any of that kind of nonsense that is still in place in other places in the world.

And just off to my left there is still a poster urging those passing by to vote for the presidential candidate the poster features. I'm making a point not to name names because things got kind of heavy this election year. There are still kings and tyrants and dictators around the world but people see in America how good democracy is and they want it for their countries too.

Separation of church and state. Now there is a difference to be appreciated. One only has to see some countries who don't have this to recognize what problems happen when it isn't true.

Our Founding Fathers. I watch the look on people's faces when they say those words. Obviously it is a look of historical appreciation.

I didn't know I was going to get on my soapbox, but just standing around all day with nothing else to do leaves a lot of time for thinking.

 

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