Post-Independence Day thoughts from the road

New Mexico desert Good morning. I am starting day five of my cross country journey and do not even have Internet this morning. Instead, I am dictating this quick post using my iPhone. Please forgive mistakes. It is very hard to proofread.

I spent most of July 4 driving through Oklahoma and New Mexico. It’s not my favorite kind of landscape – I prefer a more verdant terrain – but what was delightful was the fact that every small town through which I traveled, and I traveled through many, was festooned with red white and blue. No matter what’s going on in the big cities, lots of ordinary Americans were clearly celebrating the birth of our great national experiment in individual liberty.

One of the things I have to do is give a shout out to America as truckers. It is exhausting to drive for long stretches at a time. You must be constantly vigilant, lest something bad happen on the road. In other words, it’s a hard job.

I have seen hundreds of trucks during this trip, all of them obeying the rules of the road, all of them driving courteously, and all of them spreading throughout America the bounty of America and the world. These truckers are an impressive bunch and I think we should all be grateful for their willingness to live their life on the road.

I also have a special thank you for one trucker. The other day as I was driving along a very deserted road with no cell phone connection my tire blew out. I didn’t see anything in the road but something sure saw my tire.

I was lucky enough to have an area in which I could pull over and there was a truck parked there. I have never changed a tire. I can follow instructions to do so but honestly I was not excited about doing it myself, for tires are heavy and I am small. I went over to the truck, which had its engine running, knocked on the door, and was greeted very nicely by the truck driver, a Hispanic man, who instantly agreed to help me.

And he did indeed take care of the tire. It was hard work and he could not have been more nice or more helpful. I mention his ethnicity (Hispanic, which was clear both because of how he looked and because of his accent) because he reminded me that I have no problem with Hispanics and no problem with immigration. The country needs people like this lovely, helpful truck driver. What it does not need is the breakdown of our border. Without a border you’ve got the end of the Roman empire and, in this case, the end of the American empire. The trouble isn’t racist, or ethnicity, it is a rule of law and a sovereign territory.

I am back on the road again today and whether I blog later today depends on my fatigue level. I could’ve blogged last night but chose instead to watch a video of the Trump celebration of America. I thought his speech was magnificent, both in content and in delivery. I did not like what the Army band and army choir did to things, especially that very artistic version of the battle hymn of the republic. Given the crowds that were there, the band should’ve done a version of the battle hymn of the republic that the crowd could have sent along with. Instead it did some weird choral fandango. I also wondered what the heck was going on in Fox’s control room, because we got long shots of rain drops of and other bizarre stuff, but managed to miss the Air Force flyover. Next Year, when Trump does this again, I know it will be much, much better. And as others have said, Trump made all the Democrat doubters looks small, petty, and unpatriotic.