or Patriotism Spurred by Too Many Lone Stars on Cold November Nights
The seven of us look like an advertisement for some sort of modern-day racial diversity, post-graduate overeducated underclass poster as we sip on our PBR tallboys and Lone Stars. It’s 12:30am and it’s cold. This is the first time I had goosebumps since August. We all sit squished together on cafeteria unstained style picnic benches.
I don’t know how it happened, and I don’t know why, but it did. We started drunkenly discussing how wonderful America is. “America is the best culture in the world” and “I fucking love America” were all words that fell out of our lips. Perhaps even direct quotes. This remains poignant to me because a) most of us are first generation college graduates b)half of my friends deal with american racism on a daily basis and c)we spend 45+ hours a week working in a failing educational school system with junior and seniors in some of the worst performing schools in the country. For those of you who don’t remember, I tried to play “I love America” game on the fourth of July and failed. Miserably.
Four months later, I never would of guessed I would of been sitting there on that Saturday night. All of us see forms of poverty, illiteracy, undocumented families, intense class gaps and students who have been enrolled in school for 11 years and can’t write a coherent essay or think critically. And, still, we all sit on wobbly unstained picnic tables, the cool November air keeping our beers cold, the clear sky an indicator for our miniscule place in time and we just fucking love America. I don’t know how else to say it, but the patriotism seeped out of us.
I find this situation both odd and heartwarming. Not only are we seven individuals, some of whom who graduated from some-name-dropping Ivy Leagues, (but I argue that it doesn't really matter) we are all intelligent and educated people. I've had so many conversations about what is "wrong" about this country (this list can go on and on) but I have rarely taken time to appreciate it.
They then started singing a rendition of 'We are the Champions' and 'America the Beautiful' . The hipsters, needless to say, didn't appreciate the music, perhaps because we were drowning out Lou Reed. I wish I was kidding. At this point, I had sensory overload. The Texan Ego needed more room sit and I got up and ordered another Lone Star.
Cliches are hilarious when they're true.
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