41- WELL...WHAT IS AN AMERICAN? III....

I thought about this for some time, No. III. My answer this time is brief but chocked full of meaning, for all of the persons I have ever known, met or want to meet across small town America and even in our large cities. I believe, am honestly convinced that a good American is the person who keeps on keeping on, sometimes worried about debts, or family and personal problems and gets up the next morning and tackles their life for another day...and another day...and another day, believing in old-fashioned hope, faith and knowing inside what a wise, elderly mountain lady once told me when I drove to the top of a Blue Ridge Mountain near Pulaski, Virginia to interview her for a magazine article: "Inch by inch, everything's a cinch!"
She lived in a cabin by herself and a few cats. "Sometimes I hear a critter jump up on my roof late at night and do some heavy prowlin', up to no good! I just settle back a bit in my bed, fetch my cats up close to me. I'll whack 'em good with my walkin' stick if'n they come near me and them cats...and go back to sleep."
Well, when you add all of these decent folk up, millions and millions of them throughout America, you will continue to believe that our country is safe for another day...month...year....decade. Known what I mean?
By the way, the mountain lady was talking about a mountain lion up on her roof! She was eightysomething and wore a neat country-style bonnet while working outside in her garden on top that mountain. Her necessary house was down the path a piece. Her cats followed her, in a line, down that path each visit. And her son checked on his mother once a week, took her to church down in the valley every Sunday. She REFUSED, though, to live down in the valley, too, not wanting to be a burden on others. This avid historian fell in like with her!