The Homecoming........

It's homecoming weekend for my alma mater, Midland High School, and the big parade was this afternoon. The parade route takes the extravangza by the park two blocks from my house so we are able to walk to view it. As Julie, Jack and I stood by the street with the crowds of Bulldog fans and alums gathering, I realized what a great way that this was to spend September 11th and honor those who were lost that day two years ago. No rousing patriotic speeches, no extreme flag waving...just ordinary citizens coming together to do something completely American.

I lived in Dallas, a very large city, for many years, and so I still appreciate the way that Midland, Texas is. The small town quality. I know that people have their close neighborhoods in the bigger cities, but there is something beyond that in a small city the size of Midland. In the short walk to the parade, we pass a friends house in the next block. I've known Scott since I was 11 years old, we were in Boy Scouts in the same troop and toured the US on a bus together in 1964. Scott was at the parade. While waiting for the parade to begin, we saw Julie's old friend Maedee. Maedee is the sister of my partner Wes, who went to high school with my younger sister. You see how it goes.......

Everyone feels connected to each other. When we go to events like the parade, the crowd is not just made up of nameless faces. When the floats go by we yell at the kids, because we know their parents, their grandparents or because our kids know them. We know the homecoming queens parents and we know the brother of the twirler in the PeeWee cheerleader squad. We're proud of the kids on the floats. And the kids are proud of themselves. We clap for all the kids on the floats whether it is the Football Team, the Future Farmers of America, Distributive Education, the Ice Hockey Team that we didn't even know we had or the Foreign Language club. We know someone connected to all these activities.

It's a special feeling and a great American feeling, knowing your neighbors. It's what keeps us strong, we can count on each other, and in some ways we're accountable to one another. Let's hope the smaller towns and cities of the United States don't loose this feeling.