My son loves roller coasters, and for some time had wanted us to take him to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, which is kind of the Mecca for roller coaster riders. So we took him, my daughter, and their cousin at the end of July. We stayed in these little cottages they have there which are right on the edge of Lake Erie. They have little decks on them where you can sit and watch the lake and the sunset. It was beautiful. One day while sitting there I got to thinking. I read an article back in the 1970's about Lake Erie and how it was basically a dead lake. Pollution had not only killed most of what lived in the lake, but had also robbed it of oxygen. Swimming was disallowed--it was too dangerous and filled with chemicals. The writer at the time said that it would take thousands of years for the lake to come back. Yet here it was, in front of my eyes, and it was far from dead. Seagulls flocked by the hundreds. If you stood near the bank you could see fish. A heron perched on the remains of a jetty not far from our deck. Recreational boaters crossed the lake, reveling in a glorious summer day. It didn't take thousands of years for the lake to come back. More like forty.
My train of thought as I sat there turned to America and in my mind I made a metaphorical connection between the country and the lake. Many pundits have opined on the fall of America. They say our greatest days are behind us. They say that unemployment will stay chronically high pretty much forever, for they say that the mechanisms of employment have changed. They say that we are bankrupt (and they are right). They say that our days as a super power are numbered. I say they are all like that writer I read long ago eulogizing Lake Erie. I say that America can be brought back, and a lot sooner than people think. I say that we still have the best system of government, as long as it's kept in check. I say that the freedom we experience makes us stronger, as long as we don't abuse it. I say that, while we are in a hard time right now, we will come back and be stronger than ever. This is America. Our nation will once again be respected and envied throughout the world. I say that, like Lake Erie, we will be strong again, and we will disappoint our enemies who want us to collapse and prove all the naysayers wrong. It will not take generations to turn things around. Together we can move forward to better days and, as in the case of Lake Erie, we will fix our problems more quickly than anyone ever imagined.
