At COVID vaccine site, a glimpse of unity

This is our America: The United States that can come together, do anything, share it with everyone

We are so divided in our country — red from blue, rural from urban, Black from brown from white.

You can read about our rancorous existence any time you want. Just pull your phone out of your pocket and go to Twitter.

But if you look a little deeper, you can still find the other America beneath the surface of social media madness — the

generous, big-hearted America.

That’s the America I saw when I went to get a vaccination for COVID-19 the other day.

Let me start by saying this: I was raised to believe in an America that could do anything.

It’s the America of my father’s generation, the people who survived the Great Depression, won World War II, sent a person to the moon and created a social safety net so the aged and the poor would have dignity.

Dad came of age on a small farm in northern Indiana during the 1930s. Fun for him was nailing a canvas tarp to a post fixed to a farm wagon and setting sail down dusty rural roads. He went off to war, served in Gen. George Patton’s army and returned home to a country that would own the second half of the 20th century.

These experiences, I think, taught Dad to believe in himself, in his family, his community, his president, his country — even when he disagreed with them, which was frequently. He was relentlessly optimistic and cheerful, the kind of guy who would call a friend or family member on the spur of the moment just to talk.

Dad died in 2000, and I miss him every day. But sometimes, I’m glad he didn’t live to see how nasty we’ve become.

With a nudge from opportunistic politicians, the secret algorithms that drive social media and malevolent actors foreign and domestic, we’ve been trained to focus on differences. We’ve spoken without thinking and amplified intellectually lazy ideas, careless, fraudulent ideas, while chasing a counterfeit connectedness.

But on Monday morning, I saw a daughter take her aging mom by the hand and walk in tiny steps with her to a registration table, patting her on the back in encouragement.

I saw a sallow-faced woman lean wearily on a four-wheel walker with her husband ready at her elbow to keep her steady.

I saw a mom with a young daughter — picture book in hand — waiting quietly for their turn.

I saw Black people, white people, brown people, all kinds of people come

Our government saw to it that scientists, physicians, public health experts and private companies had what they needed for a miracle.

together to get a small dose of freedom.

To do their duty for themselves, their families, even their country. We did this.

We sent our tax dollars to Washington, D.C., and at the direction of first one president and then another, our government saw to it that scientists, physicians, public health experts and private companies had what they needed to conjure a miracle.

We did this — together. What we did isn’t all that different from what our parents and grandparents did years ago.

We have lost so much. My fatherin-law, a dear man who treated me like a son, died Dec. 4 of complications from COVID-19. More than a half-million souls like his are gone in our country. And who knows what they might have done or said, or how much better the world might have been if they had lived just a little bit longer.

But as this cloud of tragedy passes, hope remains.

After I got my shot, I walked outside into sparkling sunshine, a warm day for Milwaukee in March. And as I pulled away and drove around the building to leave, I saw children playing outside their elementary school adjacent to the vaccination site. I stopped for a moment, rolled down the window and listened. They laughed and squealed, they ran, they chased each other; they were joyous, as only grade school kids can be.

There are still those in our country who want to divide us — who say they won’t take the vaccine, who say “there’s still so much we don’t know.”

Here’s what I know: From what I saw on Monday, most Americans will do their part.

That’s something Dad would recognize. It’s the America he knew. The country he loved.

David D. Haynes is editor of the Ideas Lab. He reports on innovation in business and government and on government transparency. Email: david.haynes@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidDHaynes or Facebook.

ANGELA PETERSON / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL An Army National Guard sergeant hands out masks to the crowd waiting to receive a COVID-19 vaccination Monday outside North Division High School.

HOFFMAN / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL MARK Surrounded by journalists, student nurse Tala Fuad Hatem Abu Zahra administers a first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to Kathy Vance at a vaccination clinic Monday at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.