At 8 o'clock every morning on the base here at Capodichino they “ present colors”. I am unsure if I am using the correct military term for it but a group of sailors stand at attention for 5 minutes, then a horn blows signaling the beginning of the "ceremony". First, the Italian national anthem plays and they raise the Italian flag. All of the sailors are saluting now. As songs go, I am not particularly fond of the Italian National Anthem. It is upbeat and bubbly and doesn’t lend a feeling of grandeur and pride, at least not to my ears. Then our National Anthem plays and they raise the American Flag. It sends goose bumps up my arms as it always does. The sailors still stand, saluting and I am so puffed up I want to salute too. When it is over there are another three notes from a trumpet signaling it is OK to move about. Well, now I get to the reason for this blog. I am not on the quarter deck very often at 8 a.m. as my shift starts at 7, but what I see when I am really makes me pause. There are no bands of people (American or Italian I might add) down there ready to show their pride and patriotism. In fact, any people outside who are not part of the ceremony make haste to get in doors so they won’t have to stand still for a minute or two. Some people even run, I kid you not. It saddens me that people are in such a hurry that they cannot stop and take a minute to remember what it is about being their particular nationality that makes them proud. So, for all who care to know, here are 10 reasons why I love being an American (a lot of this discovered AFTER becoming an ex-patriot):
1. We have every gadget available to man, for example the Kindle 2 which will hold 1,500 books and will read to you and we even have a piece of Tupperware that holds your salad & you push a button on top and it squeezes out the salad dressing for you.
2. Our road systems make sense.
3. We have room to move about in our country, after all it is a continent, not a piece of one.
4. We have a million choices in every imaginable product.
5. We are the great melting pot. I love that when I say that I am American to an Italian one of the first questions is what is your origin? Meaning what nationalities are you made of? It is almost like giving my pedigree.
6. Cheap gas! You guys can complain about the prices all you want. With gas coupons we pay at least $5/gallon and if we run out of gas coupons it is a minimum of at least €8 which translates to $10.52/gallon at today’s exchange rate!
7. Freedom of Speech.
8. Freedom of Religion. If we were in any other time I am sure I would have been hanged several times for blasphemy.
9. We have every type of food we could possibly want and probably as takeout. Here, you get Italian, Italian, and more Italian, and generally no take out, AND the Italian restaurants generally all serve the same stuff. If you ask an Italian their favorite cuisine, it is hands down ITALIAN! Now having said that there are a couple of different cuisines here: Chinese, Japanese, and I did have Paella (it was terrible by the way) but there are not too many.
10. Mid-sized cars. I live in Naples, Italy population over 3 million & growing. Lots of people, very narrow roads, many many cars. Need I say more?
There are so many more reasons for us Americans to be proud and ten fold more why we should be grateful. So if you happen to be around while our boys present colors, stop a moment, look at that flag and thank your lucky stars.
