We are in Washington, D.C.
We stayed the night in Memphis last night and left this morning at 7:00 on the dot. It took us a little over 14 hours to get to our hotel, and we ordered pizza so we wouldn’t have to step outside the door again for another 12 hours.
On the way, we saw quite a few interesting and beautiful things. The mountains were the best part. We were able to see the Appalachian Mountains and bits of the Smoky Mountains. Most exciting was seeing the signs of all the Civil War battle names – Manassas, Wilderness, Shenandoah, Fredericksburg, and quite a few more.
To those of you who don’t know why we’ve come so far: It’s not exactly a vacation.
My best friend, Jeremy, his girlfriend, Rachel, and my other best friend, Ash, have come this far on a mission. We are looking for American identity.
We are looking in the places that seem obvious. The memorials, the museums, the monuments, the statues. We see these things as intrinsically tied to what we think it means to be an American. But at the same time, there are details in the places that seem irrelevant that are just as important to that definition. We will be coming home in a week, and we’ll have many stories to tell.
For instance: Something that I thought was particularly interesting was the number of roads in Virginia that were dedicated to people as “Memorial Highways” or “Memorial Bridges.” That, in addition to the number of Civil War battle sites, military institutes, and military museums (as well as this past weekend being Memorial Day) reminded me of how Americans identify with death on a daily basis. We are a nation of remembrance, and we are constantly reminding ourselves (out of guilt? debt?) that we are never to forget. Americans believe that they live, breathe, and die by certain ideals that they regard as closely intertwined with Americanism. But what are they, really and truly? What does it mean to live and die for a word like “freedom” or “America” and not really know what it means? What does it mean to be loyal to a vague blur of hand-me-down stories and distantly removed history lessons?
We are observers while we are here – intense yet biased, understanding yet separated. It will certainly be an adventure, and I hope you will stick around for the ride.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
I went to a dinner in Little Rock yesterday as a brief reunion with friends from school. On the way home, I did not drive above 70 miles per hour. Gas was $3.78 yesterday, and that was down from what it was. I was trying to make it home on what I had. I wasn't on a deadline. I didn't have a curfew. I wasn't in a hurry to go home.
I was passing a truck that was traveling around 65 when a car came up on my bumper and stayed there. All I could see was headlights. As soon as I passed the truck, I got into the right lane. The car was actually an SUV, and it passed me going at least 90 mph.
This got me thinking about the energy problem facing the United States, and who and what people believe the problem is.
Obviously, it's not us.
The house recently passed a bill allowing the U.S. to sue OPEC. Oil executives were "grilled on fuel prices." I'm sure you've heard about the gas tax holiday that McCain proposed and Clinton backed - despite the fact that economists all agree it would be a horrible idea. Oil speculators are making their money, too.
So who's the blame, according to our actions? OPEC, the oil companies, taxes, and speculators. While these all play their parts, there's still the one cog that no one is blaming too loudly, lest they lose their congressional seat: the consumer.
I understand what people are saying. They don't really have a choice when it comes to driving those long distances. My mother is one of them, as she drives an hour to work each way (and that's with good traffic). My college is an hour and a half away from my home. My grandmother works two jobs and drives to both. I get it. The people who need to drive are the ones getting hurt.
But not everyone is in this situation. Many people live in cities, where there is public transportation, but they refuse to take public transportation because they can still afford to drive their Hummers and their SUVs. But that's hardly the only problem. Remember the person in the SUV who was going 90? That person was willingly spending as much as $1.20 for gas, and wasting what he or she was paying more for.
Does anyone live in a vacuum? Why do people think, "Well, I can afford the gas today, so I'll go ahead and drive fast" only affects one wallet? It's disheartening to see people still use these attitudes. They believe in the power of their own money rather than the power of common sense.
I don't understand how people can still use this reasoning - that they're not the problem. Is the person who can only nickel and dime his gas tank the problem? Because I'm pretty sure they are lowering demand, not increasing it. Are the coworkers who carpool the problem? Because I'm also pretty sure that they're using as much as half of the gas they were before.
Every time you step on the gas, you're taking money out of your wallet and someone else's. I know, this kind of "help your brother" attitude is not very American, but our attitudes aren't the only thing that has to change if we're going to survive these tough times.
I hope people think about that as they lounge on their boats this Memorial Day weekend, commemorating what others sacrificed for them. Maybe they - we - will realize that it's our turn.
