So we had a swimming pool full of friends, neighbors and
neighbor’s kids the other day. Our hood is unique because it is a crossroads of
professionals from around the word. Down the street is a German couple who work
for a computer company. A block away is a West African couple sent here to
train as missionaries at Dallas Seminary. We’ve got Columbian and Puerto Rican
doctors, a Chillan doctor and a Peruvian college professor. And then we have a
Finish housewife, although removed from Finland about two generations. But the
point is we are diverse.
And it is fun.
As I stood in my kitchen I listened to the flow of languages
going back and forth and smiled a bit. It was like sitting at the UN and
listening. I must confess, my Spanish is rusty and they had a good laugh or two
at my pronunciation of certain words. But we all had one thing in common. We
loved barbecue. I mean adored it. Couldn’t get enough of it (mainly because I
had not fixed enough.) They had barbecue in common and not soccer. The guy from
Puerto Rico likes NCAA football better. Go figure.
Every now and then one would break away from the
conversation to stick his or her head into the TV room and see if their
country’s wrestlers or swimmers or fencers or whatever were on the Olympics.
They had great pride in their homelands, but each had an unwavering pride in
the USA, as well.
At the end of the day when good-byes were being said all
around and new neighbors had developed into new friends, there was a
camaraderie that felt very natural. We are, after all, a melting pot in
America. Other than the Indian tribes that were here since the beginning, none
of us are native to these shores. We all came from somewhere else. Even you
white folks in East Texas came from some other shore.
It was quite refreshing to enjoy so many people from such
different backgrounds and my only regret is that I ran out of barbecue. We will
do this party again and again and it will be a blast to watch as our new
neighbors assimilate into the culture of Dallas and the neighborhood in which
we live.
But one thing is for sure. There will be differences and we
will celebrate those differences – not shoot at them like the fools we watch on
TV.
Both books now available in hard copy at lulu.com
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