I’m out on the tiny balcony with Bailey, the grand-dog, watching the world go by.
This particular morning, I saw a young man of undetermined INS status, black garbage bag slung over one shoulder, going for one recyling can to the next, with a special metal stick–perhaps there is a magnet on the end–extracting aluminum cans from the bins and popping them into the bag. Surely not the happiest work in the world, but instead of pity, I felt admiration. He was clean and, like all Americans, from Somewhere Else. I could be all wet, but it struck me as an industrious thing to do. Sometimes you have to be new in the USA to see the place for what it is: a feast of plenty. Five will get you ten that this young man is saving most of the money he earns by turning in those cans, and I will go so far as to predict that in a decade or so, he’ll be wearing custom-made suits.
Okay, so I have an imagination. But why not? In America, anything is possible, and that’s one of the many reasons I love it.
This is my last day to visit here in the land of sunshine. I will be sad to leave Wendy and Jeremy, but happy to be greeted by my pets at home. I guess life is like that, isn’t it?
