WE
The British historian Arnold Toynbee once described America as bring "a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knock over a chair."
It is a designation of which we may be proud. It was said in and era when many world leaders were thinking and saying we were rather more like a mad dog, rabid and running loose intent on spreading alien ideas and concepts and ceaselessly ravaging the smaller nation of the world without mercy.
Look and listen to the varied voices speaking of us even now in our time of national election when we are going n thorough the cumbersome process of selection of a leader for the next four or eight perilous years. Some of us remember when we use to say such things about the English - describing them as a people who would "middle their way through" any b ad situation.
That was not a nice thing to say. It is not so easy to see the humor in the statement but I have witnessed the quality in the British people first hand - a quality which says they can endure, and face any dangers knowing that, in time, their rightness would rule. It seemed impossible during xhose hectic days and interminable nights. The more the Nazi bombs struck, the more stubborn Englishmen and women became; determined to see it through."muddling", you might say. When they were, backs to the wall, and in dire need. I came to feel that the "muddle through” term was the same as a term I grew with among the Appalachian mountain people in southwestern Virginia. The mountain folks spoke of "makin' do" - using what you had to do the best you could against wrongdoers.
I cannot forget those days. The city of Norwich, in Norfolk County, East Anglia, was hit for the first time at high noon just when the major manufacturing plants – shoe factories and a large chocolate plant and others - were sending thousands of workers out into the narrow, hilly streets. It all came upon them without warning and they became a new people dedicated. They hunkered down and did those things they had to do with what remained. Then , at long last, in came the tail-wagging Yanks who began upsetting chairs of tradition right away. We all, however, got along well with each other and, together, seem to have “muddled though” it all and helped to re-write some pages of history.
A.L.M. April 3, 2004 [c424wds]
