If
you’ve been reading this column for any length of time, you
might have figured out that I don’t live in your town. I suppose
you could say I live in a city since the total population around
here is over 1,000,000 folks. For me, it’s a town since I moved
here from one of our largest cities having over 4,000,000 people
several years ago. Now, I’ll agree that having a 1,000,000
people milling around isn’t exactly what you’d call a small
town, but for me it is. It’s all in your perspective. It’s
comfortable for my family and me. This may not be the case for
others.
I’ve known people that have moved from one area to
another simply because they put up a traffic signal. Too many cars
and too much hassle for their lifestyle.
Anyway,
I like where I live just fine and I suppose you do, as well
otherwise you wouldn’t be there. This past weekend we were
invited to attend a play in a small town about 90 miles from where
we live. Truth to tell, I was somewhat skeptical about attending
this event since I had made up my mind that a community theater
musical would be somewhat amateurish. Perhaps, living in somewhat
larger ‘towns’ has made me somewhat jaded. For this I should
be more aware in the future.
Let me stand up here and now and tell you how wrong I
was……First off, this was no easy musical. This was a hard one
to perform by anyone’s standards, no matter where they were.
They did great. This local community theater group pulled this off
and performed as well as anything I’ve ever seen in New York or
anywhere else. They were magnificent. During the intermission, I
was looking around at the people. Suddenly I was struck by a
thought that brought tears to my eyes. These are hard working,
honest Americans who have come to fill this school auditorium to
see their wives, daughters, nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters
get up on stage for 3 hours and entertain us.
Trust
me, it made me feel proud to be an American. You know these folks
don’t do this for the money. Some of them were teachers,
postmen, clerks, and doctors, whatever. They were just there,
because it was the right thing to do. Thus, the basis for
today’s article. You know we spend so much of our time focused
on the negative aspects of our society. We turn on the news or
read the papers and are bombarded by stories of gangs, violence,
drugs, school shootings, terrorism and criminal activity of all
sorts. We begin to believe that our entire country has gone to the
dogs.
Everywhere
we turn it seems our country is under attack by forces that often
seem beyond our control. I just wish the national media moguls
could have spent the evening watching this performance with me. It
seems as if we forget to emphasize the positive aspects of our
culture. The FFA and 4-H, Honor students, kids that work after
school, scholarship kids, kids that volunteer and yes, kids that
take time out to learn to act and sing so they can take part in
community plays. This is a wonderful country, the best this planet
has to offer at this time. We do so good as a nation in times of
crisis such as disasters, wars or other common situations that
seem to unite us as a people. Looking at something as simple as a
community play in a small town in America allowed me to see our
basic goodness.
We
would do well as a nation to start paying attention to our
citizens that are doing the right things, not the wrong ones. We
should revere our teachers, coaches and community volunteers and
tell their story not glorify the lives of the more criminal
aspects of our society. Why waste our time on the people that
bring us down instead of those that lift us up? This country and
its people are capable of so much more. We need to press forward
in a positive manner not the negative approach that we’ve gotten
used to accepting. Comments go to www.pearyperry.com
