July is a great month for Poppy-style observations and contradictions, so here are a few to go along with the semiquincentennial.
Two hundred and fifty years seems old for a country and young for a civilization. We are a little like a teenager who has accomplished incredible things while still occasionally putting the lawn mower away with no gas in it and leaving the milk on the counter.
At 250, America is old enough to know better and young enough to do it anyway. And we often do it with great flair.
Americans, for our part, are fiercely independent people who somehow all end up at the same Home Depot or Costco on Saturday morning. On the Fourth of July, many of us celebrate freedom by sitting in traffic on the way to crowded fireworks shows. After earlier complaining about the heat while simultaneously cooking meat outdoors. As contradictions go, that’s a pretty American one.
Even though Texas in July is basically like being on the sun’s front porch, I still spend a lot of time on my own porch watching the backyard wildlife. Yesterday I happened to see a squirrel standing on a tree branch with the morning sun behind it, and for the first time I had to admit that people who call squirrels “tree rats” may have a point.
The lighting was unfortunate for the squirrel. Normally, all you notice is that magnificent fluffy tail. But with the sun shining through it, I could clearly see that underneath all that glamour was a pencil-thin rat tail with an outstanding marketing department.
Thinking about it, rats and squirrels are not all that different. Similar size. Similar teeth. Similar habits of stealing food that doesn’t belong to them. Similar talent for showing up where they aren’t invited. But the squirrel’s advantage is that tail.
It’s the wildlife equivalent of hiring a really good public relations firm. Without it, a squirrel is basically a tree rat with a better hairdo.
As a squirrel enthusiast myself, I realize some squirrel lovers may wish to send strongly worded letters but I stand by my position.
Remove the fluffy tail and ask people which animal they’d rather have living in the oak tree over the driveway. The squirrel suddenly loses a surprising amount of public support.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the tail isn’t just decoration. A squirrel’s tail is a blanket, parachute, rudder, communication device, and sunshade all rolled into one.
As an American, I respect that kind of efficiency. Maybe that’s one reason America has done pretty well for herself over the last 250 years. We tend to love things that can do more than one job. The Swiss invented the Army knife. Americans looked at it and thought, “That’s a good start.”
When we improve things, we’re not really done until they mow the yard, make coffee, charge a phone, and maybe launch a satellite while they’re at it. After all, we’re the people who came up with Walmart, Iron Man, and the hat that lets you drink out of two cans without using your hands.
We are also the nation with armed forces so capable that we set aside entire teams of highly trained pilots in spectacular aircraft simply to have them fly around and say, “Check this out!”
And if that sounds a little juvenile, I suspect that’s because it is. At some point, somebody looked at one of the most advanced airplanes on Earth and thought, “You know what would make this even better? If six of them flew really close together upside down.”
Every country has its own version of a squirrel tail that is there simply to show off for… everybody. But those things matter here because they remind us who we are when we’re at our best.
Maybe that’s why I connected with the squirrels today. They remind me of America: a little chaotic, surprisingly resourceful, and occasionally found where they shouldn’t be. And always carrying around a lot of accessories not merely for survival, but sometimes just for flat-out awesomeness.
For those who may still doubt me, I have one more word: Buc-ee’s. Happy birthday, America!