REASSESMENT
Have we, as a nation, reached a point where we find ourselves disenchanted with some of the novel features which made our country become what it is today - the ackowledeged leader of the world of free nations.
Do we still revere the trappings of our cultural growth enough to use them as a firm basis for continued groweh ,or have we reached a level at which we are pausing as if to catch our breath before we continue, to where ever it might be we intend to go.
The Commonwealth of Virginia will be observing its 400th Birthday in 2007, and a hint of what is being planned to celebrate that anniverisary date is already apparent in the form of a strip across the lower edge of the state's automobile licnse plates
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Each of the other states of the nation will,in time and in turn, mark the anniversay of their beginning and each holds a heritage which is different from all others. The astonishing variety of attitudes which formed this collection of individual states is a remarkrable thing to behold.Some settlers came seeking material advancement; some saw that success in the form of gold to be had for the taking without effort; oters saw it as a place where they could practice their religious feelings without restrictions. Some individuals, no doubt, saw coming to the New World as a means of setting up their own,private entity of extended land and ownership and dominent authority and power over large groups of people. Some few. perhaps, may well have come with some basic thought of living a life of absolute freedom from oppression of any kind and we can be assured that any of these reasons for coming were highly theoretical and far from being practical - certainly not easy.
It will be interesting to see what the first in line,the Commonwealth of Virginia devises as a proper means of remembering who we were and where we came from and for what reasons. Have we realized our dreams? Did anything work out the way it was planned? Or,are we still questing for change and improvement or modifications? Or are they diffeent from the way they were origianly planned? It might be logical for use to assume that Virginia, as the first of the states to do so, so, might celebrate its 400th year by leaning heavily on the treasure it as already has in the restored City of Willimsburg. This remarkable monument of our national existence will be in the background of each state's observance of it's annivesary for whatever year. It is a vibrant,living symbol of the early Colonial values which are still found to some degree in American life styles today.
It might be wise to refrain from overdoing the 400th celebrations. If so, what will we do when the 500th rolls around?
.A.L.M. April 9, 2004 [c480wds]
