Sinking roots into America's past, present and future

The United States of America actually turns 250 years on Sept. 9 — that's when the Second Continental Congress replaced the name “United Colonies.”

I have lived in this country for 74 years, but let's go with 75 for smoother math — and that is 30% of 250. I have shared American soil for nearly one-third of its existence! This plump fraction is so shocking to me, I am still trying to pick myself off the floor.

I could say I am old — or that the United States is young. Or maybe I could just say we have been in a long-term relationship. This allows me to make some observations and to give a few suggestions.

One would be to take the train and roll down the tracks across its vast geography. I've only done so as far as Salinas, California, and St Paul, Minnesota, but that's been enough to see the magnificence of “spacious skies” and “purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain.” There is even some “shining sea.” The train window frames scene after scene of America's natural beauty, its cities and small towns as well as its people.

We had straight line winds in Minnesota one summer that snapped the flagpole in two by the time the storm woke me. I ran outside to scoop the colors from the sodden grass. The flag didn't look the same on the ground. I was used to it drawing my eyes upward. For me, the stars and stripes represented the place I've lived my life and home — and the opportunities and freedoms and choices America had made possible. It was a cloth guardian waving in the breeze, backed by an indestructible resolve to protect liberty.

I've filed past those founding documents in the dim light of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C.; looked at the flowing script on parchment. For 250 years those lines have held their place on the page — not fully comprehending the fertile country they would birth, the battles fought and the lives lost and found. They have moved and motivated millions — all by anchoring steadfastly in place.

I think Elsa was the first real immigrant friend I had. She fled communism in what was the old Czechoslovakia. She and Ludvig built a beautiful log home in Alaska where we met. I loved that her dog Sheba could “speak” both Czech and English. Since then, I've had many American friendships with people from around the globe including the Philippines, Mexico, Togo and Colombia, and most recently Moldova and Ukraine — and my own son-in-law from Türkiye. They all have their good reasons for being here — and it's amazing to me that I can know them when the odds are so slim that we would have met.

Living in places that are so different within this country has taught me to look for what is there — and not for what isn't. I did not seek the mountains of Alaska in the farmland of Minnesota. Nor did I watch for winter snow at Christmastime in Pasadena. The palm trees had colored lights entwined about their knobby trunks. Each place is its own — just as each person is his or her own. Why do I sometimes search unnecessarily for what isn't there — or fail to appreciate what is.

In this senior age that has allowed me to qualify for a monthly check, I celebrate forward thinkers like Frances Perkins who helped craft the Social Security Act in 1935. And Wilson Greatbatch's unexpected invention of the pacemaker, which has made such a life difference for me. How great it is to belong to a country filled with generous, compassionate creative minds and souls.

There is not enough space to fully affirm this America where I am privileged to sink my roots. Let's just say I proudly and gratefully claim my 30%.

Carol Shirk Knapp is the author of the Preacher's Kid column.