Thoughts on A-250

Hop in, we are going places!

I am a real estate developer which means I am naturally optimistic, but it also means I have seen my share of troubles. In my trade we encounter angry neighbors during a zoning hearing, we deal with the inevitable “bang head against wall” moments when dealing with Planning and Codes Departments, construction is never on time or budget. Yet, we persist. We get through the deal and move on to the next one, learning our lessons along the way. My thoughts on the 250th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence are colored by my (dare I say it?) “lived experience.”

Franklin’s warning to the lady outside of the Constitutional Convention (“a Republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”) haunts me anytime I look at the news or check my social media feed. The central question on this auspicious day, it seems to me, is this: “are we going forward or backward.” I look across the pond at England and Europe and see a demographic and dystopian nightmare. Their rulers seem to have adopted the notion that the job of leadership is to manage the decline. And certainly, we have more than our share of similar leaders in this country. My sense is that the idea that we are in decline that must be managed is centered on our two coasts. I just returned from a 3-week 6,250-mile sojourn across this great land. We followed some of the footsteps of Lewis and Clark up through Illinois and Missouri. We picked up the Oregon and California (and Mormon) trails across Nebraska. We reveled in the glorious mountains of Rocky Mountain National Park and the incredible landscapes of Dinosaur National Monument.

We learned about the Pony Express and John Wesley Powell’s voyage into the “great unknown.” We saw the trains meet at Golden Spike National Monument. But we also saw the squalor of downtown Los Angeles and the dismal failure of the Ivanpah Solar Power plant. But these miles informed me that we are in a pretty good spot versus the rest of the world. We have a country full of incredible resources and people, and the spirit of 1776 is very much alive through the flyover country. It is a pioneer spirit, where people are friendly and resourceful. We had car trouble in Death Valley National Park, when our rental Mazda RX-50 started faltering and flashed an “Engine Malfunction” light on the dash

. The nearest mechanic was 200-miles away, but as I examined the black boxes under the hood, the innkeeper stopped by to help and offer advice on how to tackle the problem. The Hertz Assistant folks could not have been better, promptly arranging a swap out at the Las Vegas Airport and standing by with a tow if we had trouble getting there. In Amarillo, I met a lady that worked at the Baymont Hotel who had four kids: two in medical school, one in the Marines and one trying to get into Annapolis. We met people in the National Parks and Monuments that were happy to swap advice and stories, several of whom were on the same quest as us – to try to hit as many National Parks as they can. Yes, the pioneer spirit is alive and well! Here’s the thing about that spirit. It is a spirit of independence, striving to do something better for yourself and your family but also prepared to help your nearest neighbor because you never know when you will need help yourself.

That is the mark of a true citizen versus a subject, the critical difference between what we birthed on this continent versus the long arc of history in Europe. I am reminded of the old joke about an Englishman at the tail end of the 1800’s traveling across the Western states. He encountered a cowboy out fixing his barbed wire fence. The cowboy was hot, dirty and sweaty. The Englishman asked him if “his master was about.” The cowboy responded: “that son of a bitch ain’t been born yet.” I am confident if you asked a young farmer working on a piece of farm equipment the same thing today, you would get a similar answer.

A few years ago, I was sadly convinced that my grandchildren would not live in a country as great as the one I grew up in. I was wrong. We just went to the moon again this year and we will be landing there and building a permanent settlement on the moon inside of 10-years. We have technologies that if used properly will improve our quality of life immeasurably in a few years. We have a military that is the envy of the world, and we continue to be the beacon that draws so many to our shores. This is the place that Rudyard Kipling would recognize: “Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools.”

Do we have problems? Of course. Our debt is terrifying, we are not unified, our legal system is not dispensing justice properly in many places and sadly, we have an education system that has codified teaching our children that our nation is flawed from its inception and that they should be out in the streets protesting. Plenty of things that need to be addressed to be sure. But, in the entire span of history, there has never been a country that has amassed the wealth and power of the United States and used it for the good of so many around the world. A stroll through the cemeteries of Normandy should convince you of that.

So, here on A250, I am optimistic that our best days lie ahead and that my grandchildren will see wonders that I cannot even begin to imagine today. We are nowhere near being in decline, our greatness continues to stretch out before us like so many wonderful highways through the heartland of our nation

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