Americans

Last Wednesday Vertis and I took a five and a half hour drive to Houston, where I attended a trade show, and as I drove south, I was reminded that Texas has better roads than Arkansas and especially Louisiana. If Louisiana doesn’t spend some money on Interstate 20 going into Shreveport, you’re going to see cars bounce off the road as they get close to downtown.

We had our trip planned to where we would pull into the parking lot of Ninfa’s on Navigation at 11:45.

If you have ever lived in south central Texas or in Houston, you know about Ninfa’s. It may not be the best Mexican food around, but a whole lot of folks including yours truly think it is. Well, it was crowded, and as I sat there almost rubbing shoulders with a wide variety of Americans, I was reminded that we Americans are a diverse bunch of folks, and Ninfa’s customers sure confirmed that. We were in a room with white collar bankers and oilmen, blue collar workers, and plenty of no collar individuals. When you are in Ninfa’s money, rank, and education are incidental and are ignored by staff and customers.

If you go to lunch on a Friday as we did, be sure to try and get in the main old section of the restaurant with its rustic tile floor, and don’t expect to carry on a conversation unless yelling across the table fits your bill, but that room, to me, has a special flavor that makes a trip to Ninfa’s a little more special.

As we sat there, a group of eight soldiers in fatigues took a nearby table, and as those men and women laughed and enjoyed lunch it made me consider Americans in general. I think we Americans are a different breed of cats, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. We may be a mix of dozens of nationalities, and a quick glance at the customers and wait-staff would sure confirm that, but there’s something special about just saying “I’m an American”. It brought to mind a time when Vertis and I proudly stood up as an American. I still remember that incident that happen several decades ago. Vertis and I had just finished up our two year assignment in Libya, and were heading back to the states. We had built up a lot of vacation time, and were spending some of it in Europe, and we were on a tight budget.

We arrived in Munich, West Germany, checked into a small hotel, and started looking for a place to have dinner. We shied away from the fancy restaurants, and ended up on a side street, and after a little looking, found a strictly local beerhall where you could smell the sausage from out on the sidewalk, and hear an oomph band.

“Richard, there’s only local people in there. What if the menu is in German?”

“Well, I had ten hours of German in college, so I can get us by.”

“Don’t give me that. You couldn’t’ read the German menu on the train coming in.”

“Come on…I’m starving, and we’ll just point.”

I was more than a little hesitant as we slipped through the door, and as we stood there looking for a table, I could see we were getting more than a little glance from the other customers. Most of the tables were long, family style tables. We finally picked one and took a couple of seats at the end of the table. There were about 8 others seated at the table, all locals, and they smiled and nodded as we sat down. We exchanged smiles as a stout waitress carrying 8 steins of beer served the rest of the table. She stopped to take our order, and I managed to say “Bratwurst and beer.” She nodded and we settled down to enjoy a simple but very tasty dinner, when the band conductor announced the next number. I didn’t catch the title, but I did hear “Americans”, which caught my attention. We turned back to finish our bratwurst when the band started to play, and then

I sat straight up almost immediately.

“Vertis! They’re playing Stars and Stripes Forever! For us!… Stand up!”

We jumped to our feet and stood as the band played, and as it finished to a roar of applause, I raised my stein of beer and shouted in German, “Nach Deutschland!” Which means, “To Germany.” A bit of German I remembered from college, and we immediately had 150 new friends. I have never been prouder to be an American. That memories has stayed with us for decades.

We continued our vacation for another two weeks, and when we boarded our flight to New York I could hardly contain my excitement when the Capitan announced, “Our flight to New York JFK Airport will take seven hours and forty-six minutes……”

We we’re finally heading home after two years in Benghazi, Libya. We had scheduled an extra couple of days of vacation to take in the New York’s World’s Fair. I was squeezing Vertis’s hand as we landed. My pay check had been substantially increased because we were working in a third world country, and since you really couldn’t spend much, especially when I was in the desert, we saved almost all my salary, and managed to pay off all our college debt. It was a great feeling.

As we went through customs and immigration at the airport, I glanced at my passport. It had been stamped numerous times noting entry into most European and North African countries, but the most obvious stamps were the numerous entry stamps into and out of Libya. It was pretty obvious we were Americans who had been working overseas.

I handed my passport to the Passport Officer, he looked at it as he stamped our entry, and then said “Welcome home.” You will never know that feeling unless you have lived away from America, and that brought a smile of pride from us as we walked away.

The next day we took a subway out to the New York World’s Fair. It was crowded, but we had already purchased tickets, so in minutes we were walking down the main avenue of the fair. We had only been there less than thirty minutes when we heard a marching band start their cadence from a side street. We stepped back to the curb because they were about to turn the street corner and head straight toward us. As the drum-major leading the band turned the corner and blew his whistle, the band roared out with the Michigan State Fight song. There was something so American in the marching band and the music that I can’t explain it, and we were so overcome with the reality of being back in America, that the joy and pride that the band brought out, sent us down on the curb as tears ran down our cheeks.

I believe all American have a deep seated pride about being an American, and even in these troubled times, we may have differences, but in all American hearts, there is no place like home, and my home is America..

Richard H. Mason of El Dorado is a syndicated columnist and author and former president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation and the state Pollution Control & Ecology Commission. He may be reached by email at richard@ gibraltarenergy.com .