Another Day in the Country
Becoming revolutionary
© Another Day in the Country
A few weeks ago, I saw Ken Burns interviewed about his latest historical epic film, exploring the American Revolution.
My sister and I had been combing our available television resources for something good to watch with little positive results.
“What about Ken Burns?” we chorused — as if two people can be classified as a chorus. It was more like a duet, harmonious in our ambition to find satisfaction.
We’ve always liked Ken Burns movies.
Wouldn’t you know that for me to get the series meant signing up for yet another category of programming. This time, “documentaries” needed to be added to BritBox, Masterpiece, and Acorn in our quest for viewing substance.
Documentaries are right up our alley as far as television programming is concerned.
There’s something significant about a topic being documented. It reeks of research and cross-checking with a variety of educated opinions — something more reliable than tweets and blips and breaking news.
I’ve known the rudimentary, rough outline of American history, but watching this series I realized there was so much that I didn’t know!
During my high school and college years, my schooling came from institutions and teachers more concerned with my religious training than my historical enlightenment.
I was taught that God was in control of America’s miraculous appearance on the world stage, and in listening to this retelling of our beginning as a nation, I could certainly see how they fostered that notion.
It seems to me that the trademark of people coming to this country was deep desperation. They had nothing to lose and hopefully everything to gain.
They were / are a feisty bunch of people, often downtrodden, dogged, and determined.
The hallmark that set this group of scallywags apart was their decision that in this new and different kind of society of financial and resource inequality we the people would espouse equality of pursuit, equality of speech, equality of belief — an unprecedented freedom.
How we made it off the starting block is beyond me. There were so many dichotomies. We espoused freedom while holding people enslaved. And those enslaved people, themselves hoping for freedom, were at least half if not more of the reason the prospect of this country thrived.
Perhaps it was a good thing at our nation’s beginning that communication was slow — sometimes taking a month for news to travel a few hundred miles — instead of how quickly word travels now, like wildfire.
As I watched and listened to this retelling of our beginning, I vowed to be more grateful for our early leaders.
I have a new appreciation for George Washington, who led a ragtag bunch of immigrants to fight for a common purpose against professional soldiers with infinitely more training, skill, and resources at their disposal.
With all this preamble, you’ve probably guessed that I’m recommending this latest of Burns’ communiqués to the American people for your holiday entertainment. You might as well learn something while you’re munching treats.
“This was like taking a graduate course in American history,” I said to my sister as we waded through one historic crisis after another.
I’m sure I had classes in American history, but my head was in other places when I was 19.
Lucky for me, I wasn’t called into the military like generations of 19-year-olds have been since this country was founded.
Fortunate am I to have lived through 20, 30, 60, and 80 years of history.
So here I still stand, one of these privileged citizens of the United States of America, having never been asked to give up my life for an ideal.
I’ve been asked only to support myself and my family.
I’ve been asked to submit to taxation whether I thought it was fair or not. I’ve been tasked with paying those taxes and whatever other debts I incur.
I’ve been asked to vote in elections, volunteer my services, and donate to those less fortunate.
As a citizen, I’m asked to accept this country’s imperfection while it still idealistically chases its dream of what it really means to be part of the wheels and gears of a democracy.
This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the historically constant stream of dreamers still coming to our shores, still willing to risk their all for the freedom to speak out, make choices, work hard, and re-create this “more perfect” union that we call the United States of America.
Hang in there, Americans! For this and much more, I give thanks with my German / Norwegian / Korean family — immigrants all — for another day in this country.