iT IS COLD HERE!!!!

  Ahh, to be back in the warmth of Florida, where temperatures in the low 70's earn the comment, "bit chilly today." Well, trust me, it gets bone cold here in the north and me without my gloves. I wonder if the hearts of the northern dwellers are as cold as the temperatures.

I think that we, all Americans, have grown cold, forgotten our manners, our shared citizenship, our shared dreams and goals and instead concentrated on the differences, causing us to move further and farther apart. The big question now is whether we can come back from the frozen tundra of our hearts or not. Can we warm up again to each other? It is even more difficult now because of the past two years when lockdowns and fears kept us apart, from from friends and family as well as the opportunity to meet new people. We grew afraid of each other, drew away when one approached, almost as if we were vampires out for their blood! The sight of little kids wearing masks made me cringe inwardly, wondering what we were doing to their psyche.

Worse than that, we seem to have grown a generation of people who think that not working is okay, that leaving it to others to support them and their needs is okay. They state they cannot find a job and need help even as store after store, business after business are desperate for workers. To make pretzels now in Annie's pretzels, is to earn over $17 an hour, along with benefits. Not bad.

But we have grown lazy. We have forgotten the rewards of working. We have forgotten the need to work. We have become lazy, manufacturing going, going, almost gone. How can we possibly be a superpower if we make nothing. We take no pride in the creation of an article meshing beauty and necessity such as we saw in older, vintage and antique items. Personally, I have fallen in love with them, amazed at the ingenuity and variety found in them. We need to learn to see again, the meshing of ideas and people. The creation of new beginnings out of older ideas. New hopes from old dreams. New life where it is almost dead.

Can we do it? Yes, we can, says Dora. We need to delve deeply into the American conscience, find ourselves as we should be, Americans first and foremost and stop this dead in the water unthinking partisanship which is truly harming us.

Remember, we pledge to the flag and this country, not the elephant or the donkey!