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| Photographer: Unknown. Taken from: http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/ |
They say Americans are Americentric. Well New Yorkers are surely the class of the (any noun)-centric group. I learned this recently on a trip to Kansas. Coming from the melting pot, Broadway, and “Occupy Wall St,” Kansas showed me that my reality isn't everyone's reality. “We'll put a boot in your a%$, it's the American way…” Blasting the aforementioned Toby Keith song, this really nice vet, who served in “Ghanistan”, and was injured in Iraq, picked me up to drive me to my hotel. Doesn’t Mr. Raised on a Country Farm White Soldier Boy know we’re supposed to be mortal enemies? He can't see that I'm Black? He can't hear that I'm from New York? Soldier boy kept attempting, rather, kept engaging me in conversation. Extracted some biographical from me. Proudly shared a legacy of four generations of service. Spoke of his family, his farm, and creating for his posterity, his one year old daughter whose car seat was strapped next to mine. Referring to various country songs, Really Nice Vet kept asking, “Have you heard this one?” And because my reply was usually no (the lone exception, the aforementioned Toby Keith's “American Way” in which I heard listening to talk radio so that I could lump, and think despairingly about a group of folks ), he enthusiastically turned me on to 45 minutes worth of patriotic country songs. It was surreal. Really Nice Vet was really a guy named Mike that I knew years ago. They may have spoke differently, looked differently, and listened differently, but they're the same guy. Like one of those alternate reality comics, where Superman speaks a different language, wears a different colored costume, and acts a little differently. Ultimately he's still Superman, just a little different.
