Welcome to immigrants

Count me among those who welcome you to our wonderful country. All I ask is that you go through all the legalities that are required of immigrants by this country. This is a land of immigrants. This land was built by immigrants. But the vast majority of those immigrants were legal, and they applied for their citizenship and proudly accepted it when it was granted.

I will admit that the first Europeans to arrive here did not go through any sort of immigration procedures to come here, but then, there were no requirements here at that time. If the Native Americans had organized governments as did Europeans of the same era, I'm sure it would have been a different story.

My wife had to wade through all sorts of red tape when she came to the U.S., including exams to show that she was healthy and carrying no diseases, police checks to show that she had no criminal record, proof that she would not be a ward of the state (depend on welfare) and much more. She studied for years to take and pass the citizenship exam, which most American citizens couldn't pass.

I don't mind if you bring your customs and traditions with you. All previous immigrants did that, and though they kept their traditions, they adapted to American traditions and blended in with immigrants from other countries. Today we have St. Patrick's Day, Oktoberfest, Polish weddings, Chinese New Year, etc, etc.

If our laws conflict with your traditions, religion, customs, etc, then please don't ask that we change our laws to fit your needs. Please adapt to our traditions and observe our laws, or go back to where the laws and traditions are to your liking.

So I welcome you as my country has welcomed all the immigrants before you. All I ask is that you emulate all immigrants who came before you. Is that asking too much?

Personality Cycles

Is it just me, or does everybody have personality cycles? Or maybe you could call them magnetism cycles? Charisma cycles? Whatever you would call it, there's no doubt in my mind that I have such cycles. I can be the life of the party one day and fizzle out the next.

I have days when just about everybody smiles and greets me. No matter whether young, elderly, male, female, black or white. On other days folks will frown or ignore me. On the good days I can wait at the service counter at Kmart, Lowe's, or Home Depot and clerks will rush to wait on me with a smile. If they're waiting on someone else, they will smile and say, "Be with you shortly, Sir."

On bad days I will be completely invisible to clerks. I can stand there for fifteen minutes and someone else will walk up and get immediate attention. I thought it might be the way I dress on a given day, but after a bit of experimenting, it didn't seem to matter how I was dressed.

The only exception to this seems to be kids and dogs. Kids, mostly preschoolers, almost always smile and wave. Of course I guess kids are nice to everyone. And I seem to have a way with dogs, although I'm no whisperer like Cesar.

One day I was returning an item to Lowe's. I waited and watched as several other customers who arrived after me got waited on. Sometimes I would raise my hand, "I've been standing here..." But I was unseen and unheard. Finally a young man comes up and a clerk rushed to help him. The young gentleman pointed at me and said,"He was here first." The clerk looked at me as if I had just materialized. I thanked the young man, and said to the clerk, "Sorry, guess I was invisible for a while."

Let's hear it for Hank

For those who haven't heard, Hank Williams Jr was fired from Monday Night Football. His song, "Are ya ready for some football" was the theme for MNF for some twenty years. The reason he was fired? On an interview with "Fox and Friends" he responded to a question saying that the golf game between Boener and Obama was silly; it was like a game between Hitler and Netanyahu.
Well, to make a long story short, the interviewer took that to mean that Hank was comparing Obama to Hitler. (He wasn't, he was just making an analogy. He might have said it was like a game between a cobra and a mongoose, or Atilla the Hun and the Pope--he was just making a comparison.) But because the interviewer on Fox and Friends made a big deal out of it, ESPN fired him from MNF.
What I like about him is that he didn't apologize for being politically incorrect as so many wimps do when they utter something that doesn't sit well with the politically correct crowd. Furthermore, he composed and recorded a song about the stupidity of the incident. The song is titled, "You can keep the change," and I understand it is fast becoming a hit.

Hooray for Hank.