I hope I represent Americans well in this blog.

There is a spot that comes with the blog called 'statistics' and every so often when I get bored I check it.

I can see how many hits I have gotten on a certain day, what links they have used to find the blog and what countries they are reading it from. I have a number of occasional overseas readers which is just great.

I would imagine that a number of these overseas 'hit' on this blog come from expatriated Americans; people like GIs and maybe embassy people, but not all of them. I would imagine that a few of the readers are nationals of the country that they are reading this blog from.

To these people I would like to say that I am not an average American by a long shot. Then again, maybe I am.

Our coins have the words 'E. Pluribus Unum' stamped on them. It is Latin and means 'of many, one'.

I am simply one of many people that make this country of ours what is is.

If you ave been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably know I have had a pretty varied and somewhat checkered career. I have been a soldier, a commercial fisherman, a carpenter, a cab driver and I am presently employed as a seaman. For a short time I actually worked as a cowboy.

I guess that if anything is recognized as being American, it is the cowboy.

While I would love to be posting my adventures in Dodge City and the shootouts I had with the forces of evil, that was not the case. I didn't get to ride off into the sunset on a fiery white steed, either.

I did, though, have a revolver but it was not strapped to my hip. Generally it was in the glove compartment of the pickup I drove around when I was mending fences which was pretty much a full time job. The couple of times I worked the fence on horseback, the revolver stayed in the saddle bags.

I recall using only twice. Once to put an injured animal down and the other time I used it to put a hole in a board because I was too lazy to get a drill. I did, however gun down a number of tin cans one afternoon.

I wore a straw western hat to keep the sun off of my head, but sometimes I opted for a baseball cap. I also wore western boots, jeans and a western shirt and had a bandanna around my neck. This was actually a pretty practical outfiit for that kind of work, but I have to admit that there was a certain amount of pride in being a cowboy so I dressed the part, too.

It was hard work, but it was fun sometimes. There is a certain satisfaction to having been an American Icon at one time in my life, even if it was for a brief period between jobs.

On Saturday nights, I'll admit that I sometimes went into town and drank a few beers but I never did tear up a saloon. Even back then the idea of spending a night breaking chairs over each other's heads wasn't too appealing. Things like that made for painful Sunday mornings if you were lucky enough not to wind up in the hospital.

I guess another image of Americans is that we are all rich, which is really somewhat of a relative thing. If you are living hand to mouth in some third-world slum somewhere unable to find enough to eat on any kind of a regular basis, that someone that is well fed is pretty rich. I've always managed to get enough to eat so to some people I am rich.

The fact is that I work for wages just like the majority of other Americans.

I'll say this, though. The reason I am not wealthy is because I have never aspired to getting rich. I suppose that if I had decided to amass some kind of fortune I very well would have. The opportunity to do this is here for anyone smart enough and willing to work at it. I guess you could say that it is part of the American Dream. It is still very much alive. When you look at Bill Gates, he really is nobody too special. He's just a guy that got an idea somewhere and ran with it. He never finished college and started Microsoft in a garage somewhere.

Unlike a lot of my fellow Americans that get a little cocky and take this country for granted, I do not. Not a day goes by that I am not grateful for the opportunities given to me to live the way I do. My hero is the American GI, as he generally insures that nobody will take my way of life away from me.

Like many Americans, I am pretty much a do-it-yourselfer. I do almost all of my own work around the house and almost all of the maintenance on my vehicle. When cars were a little simpler back in the day I used to replace my own engines in my back yard or in a friends barn. Why should I pay for someone to do what I can do myself?

I have to say that the part of this country that breeds such a people like Americans is that we are pretty much in posession of certain freedoms and rights. What that boils down to for the most part is that if you don't like something, you are given the opportunity to change it. That holds true to an awful lot. People have changed governmental policies here just by making it clear to their representatives what they want done. If enough people raise enough hell with the elected officials, they generally overcome and get what they want. Sometimes it takes some doing, though.

One of the things we have in this country is a right to keep arms. Since I was a child I have owned firearms and have fired countless rounds but have never injured anyone. The last thing in the world I want to do is to shoot someone. Then again, if the forces of evil decide they want to invade the Piccolo residence then they will be in for a pretty rude reception. I have no desire to be harmed in my own home.

Our constitution also permits that we enjoy a freedom of religion and I believe that to be a good thing. I truly believe in a persons right to worship as they see fit until they try and make their religion into something that I have to follow. Then watch out. I have no time for people that want to force their religion on me, no matter what it is. Although I have Roman Catholic roots, as far as I am concerned, the Pope has no business telling Americans how to run their lives. The same goes for Sharia law in this country. I simply do not want any part of it. If you want to force your religious views on someone else, than just leave. Go away. I don't want you around me.

I believe there is room in this nation for people of just about all faiths and I have a number of friends, acquatinances and co workers that are of varying religions. There are Christians,Jews, Hindus, Muslims and athiests that I can call a friend.

I also have friends that have moved to this country from somewhere else. For example, I sometimes have my hair cut by a Russian-born Jew. He does a pretty good job.

In some respects I am a typical American, but in a few others respects I am far from it.

There are over a quarter-billion of us, and we're all different.

I am just one of these.




my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/