Sedalia Walk Exceeds Goals!

Follow the link below to hear my interview with KMZU radio. I'm sure they only aired a small segment of the interview. You will notice I used the word "awesome" several times, but then it WAS awesome!

Just follow the link and click on my name to hear the interview: http://www.kmzu.com/2011/09/walk-to-end-alzheimers-surpasses-goal/

Sedalia, MO: Organizers prepare for Saturday's Walk to End Alzheimer's |

Organizers prepare for Saturday's 'Walk to End Alzheimer's' | fisher, linda, organizers - Sedalia Democrat

The Power of Purple! The End of Alzheimer’s Starts With Me—and You!

Aren’t we all getting tired of the years that have passed without finding the elusive cure for Alzheimer’s? It is time to take up the banner and proclaim we want to end Alzheimer’s NOW.

Alzheimer’s has no cure or prevention and according to the CDC nearly 75,000 die each year from the disease. More than five million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s, and worldwide 35 million have the disease. Alzheimer’s Disease International estimates that 115 million people worldwide will have Alzheimer’s by 2050.

At one time, I knew nothing about Alzheimer’s and certainly didn’t think it affected anyone but the elderly. When the doctor told my 49-year-old husband he had dementia, most likely Alzheimer’s, my first reaction was, “They have medication for that now, don’t they?”

After our ten-year journey, I learned many harsh truths about Alzheimer’s. I know that I don’t want to have the disease, not now, not ever. I want to always recognize the people I love and continue to enjoy the talents and skills I’ve accumulated during my lifetime.

I don’t want anyone in my family to develop Alzheimer’s. I love visiting with my mom and discussing practical and philosophical matters with her—trivial details, or sweeping generalities. If she were to develop dementia, I would miss that important relationship. Not only do I wish that no one close to me has Alzheimer’s, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

September is World Alzheimer’s Month and a perfect time to continue your support of the Alzheimer’s mission if, like me, you are a longtime volunteer. It is also an opportune time for newbies to learn about Alzheimer’s and become advocates.

Those of us who know Alzheimer’s from personal experience can show our support of this special month by wearing purple. After looking up information about purple, I believe it is a great choice for the fight against Alzheimer’s.

The color purple symbolizes mystery, and Alzheimer’s is indeed a mysterious disease. Researchers have learned much about the disease, but cannot solve the mystery of how to cure or prevent the disease. Purple represents magic, and we are ready for that magical moment when we live in a world without Alzheimer’s.

Purple is a combination of red (the warmest color) and blue (the coolest color). The color spectrum extremes could be compared to the emotional turmoil Alzheimer’s takes on the family of a person with Alzheimer’s.

It is only the second day of the month and I’ve polished my nails with an X-treme shade of purple. That way I’m sure that I’m wearing purple every day of World Alzheimer’s Month.

For many years, the 21st day of September was known as World Alzheimer’s Day, but since we now have an entire month, this day is known as Alzheimer’s Action Day. I have already changed my Facebook icon to END ALZ and encouraging everyone to do the same if they are ready to take the power of purple to the X-treme.

Why don’t we really make September 21 an action day? When you put on purple that day, take a few minutes to call your senator and representative to let them know Alzheimer’s research is a priority for you. Alzheimer’s research has always been underfunded and in this time of budgetary crisis, the belt may be tightened to the point of drying up Alzheimer’s research funding.

It will take millions of advocates to convince our legislators that Alzheimer’s isn’t going to go away on its own. The cost of Alzheimer’s disease is staggering. It is an expensive disease and a devastating disease for individuals with Alzheimer’s and for their families.

September 21 is Go Purple day! Wear your purple and share your personal story. The End of Alzheimer’s Starts With Me—And You. Individually, and collectively, we can take the POWER of PURPLE to a whole new level.

Copyright September 2011, L. S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Women of Courage Facing Early Onset Dementia

The sports world was shocked by news that 59-year old Coach Pat Summitt, Tennessee Women’s basketball coach, has an Alzheimer’s type of dementia. The news wasn’t uncovered through investigative reporting—the coach made the announcement herself.

Coach Summitt has met her Alzheimer’s challenge head on and fighting back. She knows this disease is not a game and nothing short of a miracle will allow her to win. Still, she has faced the disease with courage and announced that she will continue to coach as long as she can.

With a staff of veteran coaches and a supportive administration, Coach Summitt may be in the game for a long time. Remaining active and involved is the coach’s way of focusing on what she can do rather than what she can’t.

While the coach made national news, on a more personal level I heard from a friend of mine has always shown remarkable courage and faith. She developed frontotemporal dementia (FTD) while she was in her 30s.

After our initial polite greetings, I asked her how things were going.

“Taking it one day at a time,” she wrote on Facebook.

She went on to tell me that she and her husband had separated. This was sad and surprising news because he had always been so supportive and loving toward her. She goes on to tell me that her teenage son feels responsible for making sure she is all right.

Times are tough for them, and she had tried to find a part-time job to give her something to do and to supplement their income. She had already been fired from two jobs. She couldn’t remember all the steps to putting hamburgers together at the fast food place. She worked as a night clerk at a hotel but couldn’t keep anything straight so she was fired from that job too. She has an interview for a third job on Monday.

My friend had her life turned upside down when she was diagnosed with FTD and now with her husband leaving, her world has flipped again. Unfortunately, rather than making the world right side up for her, it is even more out of kilter.

I think about how her husband must have felt to walk away from her. It would be easy to say what he did was unforgivable and let it go at that. But diseases like Alzheimer’s or FTD do not just affect the person with the disease. Relationships are collateral damage. I do not condone what he did, but I do understand how year after year of caregiving takes its toll. I’ve seen caregivers who sacrificed any semblance of a normal life for a decade or more, and some who sacrificed life itself and died before the person with dementia.

Even the best of us are only human. Loving caregivers do what they can for as long as they can. It takes determination and courage to hang in there day after day until the job is done. No one except a primary caregiver knows how hard that is, and I suspect that those caregivers would be the most adamant that my friend’s husband deserves to be eternally punished for his neglect. After all, he abandoned his wife in her time of need, and abdicated his responsibility to a teenager.

As for my friend, she faces the future with optimism and courage. For now, she will be satisfied with a part-time job. She has her faith and a son who loves her.

I don’t understand why life has dealt Pat Summitt and my friend these terrible blows, but I know they are women of courage, an inspiration, and an example for all of us.

Copyright © August 2011 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Planet of the Apes: Alzheimer’s Cure Gone Wild

Every now and then, I just have to go see a movie. A few weeks ago I saw The Smurfs with my grandchildren and daughter-in-law. I can relate to that show because I used to watch The Smurfs on TV with my kids when they were little. Jim and I even used the “Not far now” description when we were traveling, although sometimes our destination was still far, far away.

I really wanted to see something that wasn’t animated and thought Rise of the Planet of the Apes looked interesting. My memories of the Planet of the Apes original movie were fuzzy, but I remembered the story was intriguing and that the apes were more human than humans.

It didn’t take long to realize Alzheimer’s played a key role in the Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Will, a researcher, discovered a cure for Alzheimer’s and the apes it was tested on became highly intelligent. Like too many miracle drugs, the fictional ALZ112 had deadly side effects. Apes became highly intelligent and human died from a virus.

The science fiction movie reflects how much our fears today have changed since the 60s when the original Planet of the Apes aired. In the new story, human holocaust is caused by a pandemic rather than a nuclear war. We are all afraid of getting a terrible disease without a cure.

Oh, wait. Isn’t that what Alzheimer’s is today? More than five million Americans are living with a disease that has no cure or effective treatment.

Although the apes were the focus of the movie, Will’s dad was a key part too. His dad was the compelling reason Will sought a cure for Alzheimer’s.

I imagine some people who would never go to see an “Alzheimer’s” movie might have seen their first glimpse of some of the challenges caregiver’s face. Will’s loving exasperation with his dad is  part of daily life for caregivers as they do what they can to care for loved ones.

The one thing that happened in this movie that hasn’t happened yet in real life was the interlude when the drug temporarily “cured” Alzheimer’s. What would it be like to wake up one morning and find your loved one had returned to normal? That would indeed be a day for celebration!

Will we ever see that day? Dedicated scientists have found miracle cures for other diseases. I carry a scar on my arm from a smallpox immunization. My children don’t have the scar because by the time they were old enough, it was no longer necessary. Smallpox was virtually unheard of during their childhood. Polio was another disease I remember being warned about when I was young.

Both of these diseases were challenging, but cures were found. That is what we need for Alzheimer’s—and the sooner the better. Too many people have journeyed down a road with a dead end. The warning signs are there, but with no way to go except forward, the destination is the same for everyone.

I understand Will’s desperation to stop the disease from taking his dad. I’ve felt that desperation, and I’ve seen it in the eyes of other family members when they hear the diagnosis is Alzheimer’s. Finding a cure seems to be moving in slow motion while we fast forward to the scary parts, and all we really want is a happier ending than we’ve been given. With all the medical advances of the past twenty years, or even the past five years, why can’t Alzheimer’s be cured?

It’s like the key to unlock the mystery of Alzheimer’s is buried in a mountain of keys that all look alike. It seems an impossible task to find the correct key and insert it into the lock. But when that perfect key is found, the lock will spring open.

The cure for Alzheimer’s isn’t just possible in a science fiction movie. The right key is there, it’s just waiting to be found.

Copyright © August 2011 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blospot.com/

Snapshot

I worked at the Missouri State Fair this year taking pictures in the Cooperative building. I’ve had this job before and always enjoyed handing over this personal souvenir of the fair. The pictures are taken in front of a backdrop with the year, a life-sized Buddy Bear, and the words “Fun at the Fair.” I snapped the pictures as soon as the babies stopped crying and the adults quit scowling. Another cooperative employee pulled them up on a computer screen and sent them to the printer.

Part of the fun is seeing the priceless expression on a newbie’s faces when he realizes the picture is free. “You aren’t going to get my phone number or email account number to pressure me to buy something else?” one man asked.

“No, we aren’t even going to ask your name,” I replied. “We just take a picture and give it to you.”

Having their picture taken is on some people’s “must do at the fair” list. They walk through the door and immediately get in line to have their picture taken. One man said, “We have fifteen of these on our refrigerator—one taken each year.” Another man said, “This is our annual family picture.” A woman said with surprise in her voice when she looked at the picture of her daughter, “She’s taller than Buddy Bear now!”

A lot of us have annual events that mark the passage of time. It may be a family reunion, a holiday, or the State Fair. It’s amazing to compare snapshots year-to-year and see how we have changed. It’s always a little bittersweet when you look at your children, or grandchildren, and visually time travel the distance from one year to the next in a veritable blink of an eye.

Pictures used to be harder to take and people my age didn’t grow up in front of digital cameras and cell phones that send pictures to the Internet in a few clicks. We had to buy rolls of film with 12 or 24 pictures on them. We snapped away and then sent the film off to be developed. So we paid for film, paid for photo development, and then threw away about half of the pictures because they didn’t “take.” The good thing about the old-fashioned way is we ended up with print photos. Now, I take hundreds of pictures and store them on my computer, and seldom have print copies of them.

Snapshots are a pictorial history of our lives. They can help us retrieve memories that are filed within the deepest recesses of our brains. Sometimes a picture can remind us of how the sun felt on our skin, or how the breeze smelled. Snapshots are a way of time travel without using any mythical machine.

When Jim went into the nursing home, we surrounded him with photos of family. He had several small photo albums to remind him of better times. Occasionally, he would look at a photo and say the names of the people in the pictures.

I brought pictures of Jim on my advocacy trips to Washington DC. The first picture in my small album was of Jim dressed in his western shirt, Levis, and cowboy hat before dementia changed him. The second picture was of the early stages, what I called his eccentric stage, when he wore a denim jacket decorated with pins and his battered nametag from Branson. In the middle stages, the picture was taken at the park and he wore a Kansas City Chief’s shirt and sweatpants. His eyes have a blank look. Then in the later stages, the picture showed Jim in the nursing home hallway sitting in his merry walker.

Now, most of the snapshots are put away, and I only look at them occasionally with smiles and, sometimes, tears. The pictures are a one-dimensional view of a full and rich lifetime of memories.

Special events roll around annually and in the meantime, we will snap away to fill our computers and photo albums with people we love and places we visit. Life goes on and we continue to take pictures and record today for tomorrow’s history.

Copyright © L. S. Fisher August 2011
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/

Look Into My Eyes

I used to play a game with my grandson where I put my forehead against his and said, “Look into my eyes!” For some reason he always thought that was funny. It might have been my goofy tone of voice, or else he could see something in my eyes no one else could.

Recently I found out just how deeply an optometrist can look into my eyes. While I was on vacation, I saw some flashes of light in my left peripheral vision and a few quick Internet searches later discovered that it could mean a detached retina. Knowing that doing something soon was the key, I tried to find someone to look at my eye on a weekend in a tiny town in Maine. Well, that just didn’t happen so I made an appointment as soon as I got home.

After dilating my eyes, the optometrist used a powerful scope to examine them. His verdict was that my retinas were in fine shape, and I didn’t have any eye disease. That was the best kind of news for me to hear. After all, my vision is horrible and I didn’t need anything to make it worse.

Now it seems that eyes may be a way to detect Alzheimer’s. Anyone who has been through the diagnostic process, especially with younger-onset dementia, knows just how painstakingly slow, and expensive, getting a diagnosis can be. It is no wonder that some people skip the testing and just assume they have Alzheimer’s.

Researchers have found a couple of different biomarkers in eyes that would indicate Alzheimer’s disease or the risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease. A new study from Australia discovered that blood vessels in the eyes of people with Alzheimer’s were a different width than those who did not have the disease.

Several years ago, researchers at Boston University found amyloid (the substance in Alzheimer’s plaques) in the eyes of people with Alzheimer’s. Some of the original researchers have been working several years on a laser scanner for early detection of Down’s and Alzheimer’s.

It takes years for research to be put into common use and the eye test for Alzheimer’s is no exception. So it doesn’t look like easy detection will happen soon.

You may be wondering why researchers would be trying to detect Alzheimer’s early when there isn’t a cure available and all current medication does is delay the symptoms, not the disease. One of the most compelling arguments for early diagnosis is to make sure you have Alzheimer’s and not a treatable condition.

It took us nearly two years to get a diagnosis for Jim. At first, we thought his symptoms might be from depression. When treating the depression didn’t help, he was checked for vitamin deficiencies, diabetes, AIDS, and other conditions that we probably didn’t even know they were ruling out.

After psychological testing, we learned that Jim had dementia—and the most likely cause was Alzheimer’s. This brought about a new series of tests. One scan indicated damage from a stroke, but a more sensitive scan showed general brain atrophy rather than stroke damage. A few specialists later, the Alzheimer’s type of dementia diagnosis seemed most likely.

So how would earlier detection have helped? If Jim had been able to take the Alzheimer’s drugs, they would have been more effective during the early stages of the disease. More important to us, we didn’t ignore a treatable condition with the assumption that he had Alzheimer’s.

I had good insurance, or we could not have afforded to explore all the possible reasons for Jim’s problems. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have insurance to pay for the endless testing to rule out reversible conditions.

If an eye exam could be used as a screening tool, it would be an inexpensive way to monitor your health. Looking into your eyes could mean you would know if your symptoms are from Alzheimer’s, or whether you need to keep searching for a different, and possibly treatable, cause.

Copyright © July 2011 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/

Never a Dull Moment

Last Friday, I visited Four Season Living Center to deliver a packet to the Walk to End Alzheimer’s team captain. I parked my car in my usual spot. My eyes automatically settled on a certain window; I swallowed hard and blinked back the tears. Jim lived in that room for four years, and we spent a lot of time there. Each day when I visited him, I didn’t know what to expect, but it seemed like there weren’t too many dull moments.

I didn’t recognize the lady behind the reception desk, but while I was talking to her, Danna walked up behind me. She greeted me with a smile and a hug.

“The lobby looks different than it did when the deer came crashing through and jumped into Jim’s room,” I said. For the benefit of the new worker, I briefed her on the deer story.

“It’s strange that you walked in here today,” Danna said. “I just got off the phone with Gwyn’s family. They wanted to know if we had a copy of the newspaper article about the deer. Gwyn passed away last week. Suddenly. She was only 46.”

I was shocked, and it took a minute for it to soak in. Gwyn, gone, when all I could think about was her sense of humor and how she was so full of life.

Danna called Gwyn’s family back and I talked to them. It seems that Gwyn had often told the story about the day the deer came to visit the nursing home. I promised to send them the “deer” story from my journal. Here is an excerpt from the story. 

Oh, Deer!

When I arrived at Four Seasons, I saw broken glass in the lobby and the admissions office.

“Linda, did you hear what happened?” Richard, the administrator asked me.

“Yes, they called me, but I can’t visualize how it happened.”

“The deer broke through that window over there,” he said pointing to a gaping hole in the south wall. “Then he ran across the lobby and into Pat’s office...”

“And I was talking on the phone,” Pat said, “this deer came charging into my office. I was just petrified. I just hung the phone up. I can’t even remember who I was talking to. The deer crashed out my window and ran across the lawn. Then we saw him leap through a resident’s window.”

“Then Lois ran down the hall and into Jim’s room and jumped on the deer,” Richard said.

“What? You jumped on the deer?” I asked, looking at the director of nursing. It was hard to believe that someone would do such a thing. “Where was Fred when all this was going on?” Fred was the nursing home’s adopted greyhound.

“He was right here, but he seemed to be as surprised as we were,” Richard said.

I walked rapidly down the hallway, hit the button to disarm the alarm and pushed the door open to the Alzheimer’s unit. Jim’s room was a shambles, with fragments of glass still in his air conditioning unit. Smears of blood on the floor, and deer hair stuck in the cracks and crevices made Jim’s room look like a crime scene. 

Gwyn and Mary started filling me in on the morning’s events: When the six-point buck made his unexpected entry through the window, most of the residents were in the dining room eating breakfast, except Jim, who was wandering the halls.

Mary was just getting ready to take Jim to his room to feed him when the deer careened into the room, glass and blood flying everywhere.  Lois arrived on the scene, pinning the thrashing deer to the floor with her best wrestling hold. Gwyn grabbed a blanket and told Lois she should get off the deer.  Gwyn threw the blanket over the wounded animal, then decided to sit on the deer to make sure it didn’t get up and run down the hall.

“I was sitting on the deer, hanging onto both antlers, and he started bleeding out of his mouth.  I said awwwwwwww, and let go and started petting him. Someone said ‘what are you doing!’ and I grabbed hold of both antlers again.”

Conservation agents responded to the 911 call and cut the wounded deer’s throat. The agent asked Gwyn if she had a hunting permit.

“No, why?” Gwyn asked him. She was alarmed, wondering why she needed a hunting permit when all she did was sit on the deer.

The agent started writing.  “Oh, no!” Gwyn was thinking, “I’m going to get a ticket!” Instead, the conservation agent wrote out a permit allowing Gwyn to keep the deer.

“I’m from Arizona,” Gwyn told me, “where the deer stay in the woods where they belong!  I had never even seen a deer up close. I don’t know what I was thinking, other than I couldn’t let that deer get to my residents!” 

Like I said—never a dull moment. I can still hear Gwyn’s husky voice and her laughter.

Copyright (c) July 2011 L. S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com   

My Recollections, Our Memories

“Mom and I went to the Mennonite restaurant to eat, and there was a hearse parked right in front of it,” I said to my brother, Donnie. I had stopped by the nursing home to visit him while I was in town. “I couldn’t help but wonder if a coffin was in the back—in this sweltering heat! Mom said, ‘Even hearse drivers have to eat.’” I told Donnie about my covert glance into the hearse, and we shared a laugh about my concern.

Donnie’s speech is slurred from strokes, and I have to listen closely to hear what he has to say. The hearse story reminded him of a memory. “Do you remember when Butch Gardner bought that old hearse? He thought he was really going to get the girls to go out with him, but none of them would ride in the hearse.”

I laughed at the memory of the hearse. “That wasn’t Butch that owned that hearse,” I said, delving into my own memory. “It was a guy named Bruce—he was Claude and Leroy’s cousin. He was a good-looking guy, and I did go out with him in the hearse. Mom and dad disagreed on whether I could go or not, but they finally let me. The date turned out to be the two of us and a whole carload of kids in the back.”

“Yeah, I remember riding in the back,” Donnie said. “I thought it was Butch.”

“Remember, we went to a creek and went swimming. That was my ‘date’ in the hearse.”

“I think that was our club that went to the creek in the hearse,” Donnie said.

“I believe it was too,” I said. A big group of us country kids formed a club and went on different activities together. Butch was in that club, so that’s probably why Donnie thought the hearse belonged to him.

“Do you remember the skating party?” I asked. “That was the second time I ever saw Jim. I told Jim our club was going to be at the skating rink and he met us there. He wore a shirt with the sleeves ripped off.”

Donnie nodded and I knew that he too was remembering Jim. After Jim and I greeted each other, he went to get his skates. I sat on a bench next to Claude to lace up my skates. “Is that guy bothering you?” Claude asked. I’m sure he thought Jim was some kind of local punk. “If he is, just say the word and I’ll straighten him out!”

I reassured Claude that I knew Jim and had invited him to the skating party. I was touched since Claude was a mild mannered kid and Jim was a former Golden Gloves boxer.

Donnie and I laughed over our shared memories.

In a serious moment, Donnie said, “I think I know more people that have died that I know who are alive.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. The memories I had just shared about Claude and Jim, once a shared memory between the three of us, is now mine alone. Both of them are gone.

I kissed Donnie on the cheek, feeling good about our visit. Some days he is depressed or upset, but today we had found a happy place in our shared memories.

Our visit made me remember how vivid Jim’s memories were before dementia erased them. Before dementia, little slices of life lived in Jim’s memories long after I had forgotten them. I thought about how sad it was when our memories were gone, and how lonely I felt when Jim couldn’t remember our special times together.

Our memories are flawed because we each see life from an individualized perspective. Certain moments in life are etched into our brains with clarity, while others are fuzzy and out of focus. The older we get, the more memories become so buried that we may never retrieve them again.

Memories may be distorted by time or disease, but if we voice our recollections, those reminiscences are a way to reconnect to a shared past. After stories are erased from our brains, they can linger forever in our hearts.

Copyright © July 2011 L.S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

This Amazing Country

Around Independence Day, we often examine our reasons for being proud of our country and count our blessings for living in America. To celebrate this holiday, we eat ourselves silly at picnics and backyard barbeques, take advantage of sidewalk sales, listen to patriotic music, have fun in the sun, drag out all things red, white, and blue, and set off thousands of dollars worth of fireworks. We fairly explode with pride in our country.

I went to the lake to see the magnificent fireworks shooting into the sky over the dam. The display was rivaled by nature’s thunder and lightning. I overheard a woman talking about her plans to watch a pyrotechnical display in a nearby town the next night. She said the best vantage point was the nursing home parking lot. I thought of how Jim hated the sounds of fireworks because they sounded like war to him. I tried to keep him away from the sights and sounds of the holiday. Do you know what an impossible task that is? I wonder if other people with dementia might not understand why the night is full of loud booms and bright lights.

No doubt, we live in an amazing country with opportunity for all. This doesn’t mean everyone appreciates the wide-wonderful country we call home. We find a lot to complain about on a regular basis—the price of a gallon of gas, the government (especially when our political party is not in power), the weather, taxes, and all those immigrants—illegal or not.

This country was built on immigration. Other than Native Americans, we are in this wonderful country because our ancestors pulled up roots and transplanted themselves in America. I cannot imagine how a person could leave his homeland and start over in a new land, or in a new world, as it was known. They came here knowing they would never go home again. To me, this is as attractive as it would be to move to a different planet.

Our newspaper ran a contest for local people to write about why they were proud to be an American in fifty words or less. Since Saturday morning was a more laidback day than normal, I read the short, short essays written by proud Americans. One really caught my eye. Vietnam veteran, Larry D. Stevenson, wrote: “Drafted into the Army, served a tour in Vietnam where I was involved in heavy combat. Received this nation’s second highest combat award, the Silver Star. Came home to a country in turmoil over the conflict. What makes me proud of that? The rights we, as Americans, have to voice our opinions for or against our government’s actions.”

When we can be proudest of the freedoms that hurt us most, we have achieved a higher level. I’ve often noticed that the men and women who have sacrificed the most for this country understand this more than others.

We aren’t proud of our country because everything is perfect. Part of the amazing part about our country is the way we embrace the imperfect, contrary to our own personal preferences, and our tolerance for the melting pot of nationalities and personalities that make up the citizens of this country.

We can bellyache about what is wrong in this country fully confident that although others might not like it, they can’t stop us. Before we label a practice or person as “un-American” it is time to give serious thought to want makes America special. Could it be that the very things we think are un-American are, indeed, the embodiment of why this is a great country?

Copyright © L. S. Fisher July 2011
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/