Bystander Weekend in America: Have You 'Herd'?

Our bystander weekend in America started last Friday in Pensacola, but the beach wasn't where we started standing by. While SAM used a paid vacation day and I adjusted my schedule, Son and Daughter-in-law both took a half-day off without pay for something that took five years to realize: Daughter-in-law's naturalization ceremony for U.S. citizenship. Freedom in America ain't free. In fact, it's fairly expensive. There's the cost of the application itself, legal assistance if you're confused by the process, as well as frequent travel to and from immigration offices. Our DIL had to go to back and forth to New Orleans and Jacksonville several times over the past several years to prove something. Lawful resident status, I guess?

According to the Honorable Roger Vinson, District Judge, who presided over the occasion, citizenship is an equal opportunity, not a commodity. In other words, it can't be bought or sold. Several snickers proceeding from the peanut gallery (the result of a standing-room-only crowd) made it clear that not everyone in the room believed him. Yours truly was one of the peanut gallery bystanders. The incredulous behavior probably comes from being primed. Reading things like The EB5 Path to Citizenship (Invest One Million Dollars in Florida Real Estate, and You're In!) tends to make you wonder where this country is headed. That EB5 Visa thing is nothing new, by the way. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has been stacking the deck in favor of wealth and fame (officially) since 1991. Bystander effect, indeed. Really, what can one of the herd do about any of it? Shut up and pay your taxes, I guess.

We are very proud of DIL for all of her hard work and patient effort to gain citizenship. She's one in a million.

After all of that standing by, shoeless, sore-footed SAM and I picked up our grandson from daycare and headed for the beach, and Son and DIL went to work. Grandson had to miss the ceremony. Can you imagine a 4-year-old standing and waiting patiently and quietly for hours while a bunch of people spoke of and listened teary-eyed to things like "true faith and allegiance" to the Constitution of the United States? I'm of the opinion that every U.S. citizen, not just the naturalized ones, should have to swear this oath at one point or another. It's prime stuff for thinking about service, integrity, honor, freedom, responsibility...And then there were the songs. Dr. Leo Day sang The Star Spangled Banner to begin the morning's proceedings and ended them by singing America the Beautiful in English, Spanish, and German. There's nothing like music to reinforce some powerful ideas.

While I walked around and sifted and stored some more ideas in my already overloaded brain files, SAM and Grandson dug something up from a hole in the sand.


Ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata) on the beach at Pensacola Pass



We joked with Grandson about having crab for supper. He was having none of our nonsense. The crab was set free and claimed by the sea.