Democracy in America

Part One



Shortly after I turned twenty-one I took a trip over my spring break with my three uncles and my grandfather. We headed east, to Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and Washington D.C. Most other guys my age were celebrating in Cancun, or Daytona Beach, but I spent the week visiting the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, the surrender site of Appomattox, and the National Air and Space Museum.

I probably formulated my first real opinion of America on that trip, as we drove through the Appalachian Mountains, ate scrapple in the General Lee Family Restaurant, and touched pieces of the moon that the astronauts brought back.

I listened to my grandfather tell the same story over and over again, about how my great-great-great grandfather had been at Gettysburg, how it was his cavalry company that fired the first shot (true), and how it may have even been his rifle that done it (not true.)



I was born shortly before Nixon was reelected in ’72, came of age in the Reagan years, and formulated my political ideology during the first Bush administration. While its leaders were oftentimes flawed, and our history was marked with the horrible stain of slavery and Indian genocide, the idea of America, and the occasional triumphs of America, were enough to make be believe in it.

Later that fall I voted in my first presidential election, and helped elect Bill Clinton to his first term as President of the United States.

I spent most of the nineties in school, working part-time jobs and earning both a degree in history, and a master’s in education, which I used to begin a career teaching 5th graders about American history.

Then everything changed.

George Bush became president in 2000. I traveled overseas for the first time in March of 2001, with some of those same uncles. And then nothing was ever the same again after September 11th.

The benign conservatism I had grown up around suddenly became this vicious, hypocritical machine that laid waste to so much I had believed in. Religious zealots and sharp-dressed warmongers took the idea of America and buried it in a shallow grave.

The summer of 2004 I traveled back to D.C., to see the new World War Two Memorial and to once again visit the museums and monuments along the National Mall. Afterwards I drove north along the East Coast, passing through Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City, until arriving late into the evening in Concord, Massachusetts.

I walked around Boston, where the revolution began, and saw the remnants of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, held there the week previous. Ate breakfast at Walden Pond, and pondered the state of America, and myself, as I drove home to Illinois.



Funny thing about that Democratic Convention, though. The keynote speaker was the young state senator from Illinois, running for U.S. Senator. My friend Hal, who works for the state senate Democrats, had mentioned him a while back, saying “you should check this guy out. He’s the real deal.”

And so in November of 2004 I voted for John Kerry for President, and Barack Obama for United States Senator.

To be continued.