In America

I was in the home improvement store today picking up the usual "just moved in" stuff like duct tape, and I saw The Spool.

Remember The Spool?

When we were in college, we would have died to have The Spool in our apartment. It's a coffee table. It's a kitchen table. It's a foot stool.

It's trash.

But we didn't care. It was cool and it was free.

When I saw The Spool, I thought about college and how Mama and I shopped Dollar General for inexpensive kitchen items, discounted towels and sheets, and blue and mauve home accents. Hey, it was the end of the 80's. I took what I could get.

I remember graduating from college and making more than minimum wage. I thought I was rich! I could even purchase furniture on credit and make monthly payments "same as cash." I bought Lean Cuisines instead of the 99 cents entrees and, get this- I actually drank real Diet Coke, instead of the off brand stuff!

I KNOW! I was a regular Krystle Carrington.

So I was thinking today about how a person in this great country of mine can really dream anything, do anything, be anything. It's in America that a person can start out with The Spool and end up in a home improvement store looking for duct tape to hook up his dryer vent.

It's in America that a person can own a piece of land, cultivate its rich soil, and sow corn, or oranges, or Christmas trees, and reap the benefits of the long, hot days in the field.

In America, you can come from a family who can't even read and end up teaching literature at a university.

It's in America, that a woman can be Speaker of the House, Secretary of State, The President, or a Stay At Home Mom if she just puts her mind to it.

In America, a person can work hard all of his life, lose everything he owns to a storm or a fire, and still have help from his neighbors, his friends, his church, and sometimes, his government.

Then start all over again.

And still succeed.

In America.

All you have to do is dream.

*I'm going for nostalgia mixed with a little patriotism. Democracy breeds dreams no matter where you live. ;>)