America the Brave.

A note to the reader: A year and some change ago, before we had purchased our house, I was in the active process of looking for one when I came up with a house sweepstakes.
No, not the HGTV dreamhouse of recent fame, but a small, renovated authentic Spanish hacienda in the charming little town of Gallup,New Mexico. The owners, both lawyers, had outgrown it and only had a measly $3,000 left of the mortgage to pay. They both being also literary/creative types decided that the most interesting way to unload their house would be to raffle it of in an essay contest, may the best writer win.

I wish I could say that I won, but clearly I didn't. I did however enter. The terms were simple. Enter your essay entitled "America the Great" and submit a check for $100 dollars. They posted it on a blog much like this one, and they said that if they received enough entry money to pay off the mortgage, the winner got the house free and clear. If they didn't get enough all money would be returned.

So I wrote and rewrote my essay, plead and re-plead my case with my husband as to how I knew this was not a scam and perhaps a good investment, and sent of my stuff.I turned in my envelope, registered mail on the first snowy day of the winter in our new town of Albuquerque.
I stepped carefully between snowflakes, prayed, waited, prayed.

A couple weeks later I received a check in the mail. The one I had sent the owners.

Oh well. What can you do? At least I was right that it was wasn't a scam. A month or two later we closed on our house. Ces' la vie. At any rate, dear imaginary readers, this is the text of my essay, short and bittersweet.

America the Great. America the brave, the restless. Jazz was born here. Be-Bop spoken here. America the beautiful. There is only one Grand Canyon, one Mississippi. Our redwoods and tall buildings scrape the sky and salute the sea. We are lulled to sleep by the Pacific, and the sun rises golden over our gilded Atlantic coastlines. We built the mother road, that tarnished silver ribbon that still runs in fragments across The Land of Enchantment to the Windy City due east and west across our great land. Route 66, come get your kicks. You can drive all night to Graceland. Ride the trolley in San Francisco, drink bourbon in the Bayou. Ride a horse as your great grandfather did over the Rocky Mountains ridges. Hear some sweet old timey blue grass melody in the Appalachians. Come drink your weight in moonshine. Build your own speakeasy. We still believe in Manifest Destiny.
There is room for everyone here.
Sure we have had our fair share of wars, and not all of them noble. But our boys barely 18 died for world freedom and peace, whether or not they returned to a hero's welcome. There was not always a parade. But their sweethearts still wore their red lipstick and did their hair up just the same. We invented baseball and perfected the hamburger. You'll never have fried chicken like our Kentuky Gold. We do it bigger, better, faster. We burn the midnight oil, and the candle at both ends here. We still believe in Santa Claus. And the juke box still can be heard playing deep in the dixie darkness.
Ours is a a land of long plains, yellow cornfields, wide azure shimmering lakes, raging rivers, painted deserts, a land of purple mountains and majesty. The buffalo still roam here, the antelope play at twilight. The mountain goats guard the peaks and the elk roam the valleys. The wild horses run free. Their are still bears in our woods, and wolfs in the hills. The eagle and condor screech and soar across the mesas. We have cactus and wetland, old growth and metropolis, both with interesting wildlife. You can wear whatever you want here, ten gallon hat and cowboy boots in Austin or in Manhattan, or in Seattle sweatpants to the opera. You can feel at ease here, and for the most part do as you please. You can change your name to Sir and salute the flag, or mutter to yourself in irreverent indifference. Coffee is religion here, and Coca Cola flows in every soda fountain on either side of every town. You can order them in six different sizes, and 31 flavors. What ever you want we have it in build to suite, made to order, for sale by owner and your way right away.
From Hollywood to Rosewood, the Oregon Coast to Cape Cod, across the Vast expanses of Texas and the short walk across the top of Delaware, we are almost never to busy to talk to a friendly stranger. We love our country and our freedom and our simple way of life, no matter how complex. We still believe in the Dream. Both Martin Luther's and the Great American. And the Sante Fe Northern Railroad still huffs and blows across the night.