Full circle

After 12 days and almost 4,000 miles , I have obtained somewhat a longer view, despite “Fines double” signs and bridges that go nowhere. Eisenhower once so impressed with the German autobahn that he overhauled the US highway system ( wide enough to accommodate tanks and artilleries transport). For me, I notice:

• people are struggling to meet ends meet (a Walmart cashier – few of them left at near full automation – boasted she got one more hour on her shift)
• a Vietnamese homeless person slept on restaurant bench (designated for guests on over-spill days) in broad day light
• hotel front desk obviously was not paying much attention to the debt ceiling crisis. He’s got his basket ball game on TV
• Floridian and folks elsewhere on my itinerary are way- overweight
• Memorial weekend extended to become Memorial Week, in post- Covid era
• Can’t see the White House, and the Vietnam Memorial by just driving through D.C. (I meant to).
• Hitchhikers on highway (I saw only one). People are desperate, but fear is stronger than exhaustion
• Smaller hotel chains rule e.g. Hilton, Hampton Inn and Howard Johnson

Two different versions of America: one in stock video (the kind Department of State shows overseas) and the other, real folks I met. Red States tend to keep to themselves. Blue States turn “rainbow”.

It’s the landscape. Vast land, few ( or uneven) opportunities. Manufactured crisis amplified via Social Media, while industrial manufacturing is declined in Rust Belt.

It’s painful. It’s my country too. Black folks, White folks and Brown folks. Fellow citizens. Came with big dreams. Few attained ( hey that’s my bench!). Buddhist temples saw an opportunity to expand (tax exemption), inadvertently, beating the Evangelicals in their own game. Watch out for technology aided assault e.g. Zoom. facetime, Viber (allowing an unseen invasion from overseas over the air).

I stopped at Chow King near Fort Payne. I wonder when and if the US goes to war with China, what would be the fate of folks working there. Will they once again be interned at nearby military camps?

We can solve the border crisis by negative ad campaigns, targeting South Americans who are desperate to come (by showing them Uvalde, smog in NYC, homeless occupying bus stops, overweight folks in trucks that need a ladder to climb into etc…). In short, the opposite of their coyote’s version of America.

Once we had high hopes, that America welcome the huddle mass, with Hollywood showing Bel Air and Rodeo Drive ( Beverly Hills cops) ; that Obama could be President for two consecutive terms. Only to end up in circle: Divided States.

Good luck to all, myself included. We need to make it happen. In the words of our SEAL commander at his UT Commencement address “Start by making your bed”. I can only add: “then look at yourself in the mirror, preferably without clothes”.

Travel takes me in full circle too. I can see the problem now. It’s me.