Day 18

The problems of the world are many and what is going on in the Middle East is both scary and exciting at the same time.  Scary because we do not know what is going to happen as a result of the revolutions going on all over and exciting that it may turn out for the good of these people that they become a democracy that elects the people in charge and can control their countries as partners not slaves.  We take for granted out freedom we have every day.  You only need to step outside this country to visit others to see how good we have things here.  We may have slipped in education and math and science in the standings of the world but we can get this back because as Americans we can find a way to succeed.  In our country we have the most creative people in the world that are able to make things happen that once seemed impossible.  I am thinking of all this because it was about this time of year when I was asked while going to Colorado State University to help to show a group of Russian Gymnasts around our town.  They had come to our school to put on a display of their skills and you must know that they were some amazing people and highly skilled athletes.  We took them in a car around town and they were escorted by what I am sure was KGB.  Those men did not speak to us ever.  We talked to them about the sights we were seeing in our town and they spoke broken English but of course it was way better then I could speak Russian.  We showed them the nearby lake and other things around and we stopped at the King Soopers the local grocery store.  We did not think much of it I think we were stopping to get something to cook for dinner.  King Soopers is a very nice chain in Colorado and my favorite to go to when shopping.   While we were in the store two of the girls asked us if we had set this up just for them to see.  I was confused as to why they would ask us this never having to ever struggle to get food.  They said this was a whole lot of food and that they really did not believe us when we said this was not a set up.  So we proceeded to take them to other grocery stores from other chains in the area in a way proving that this was normal.  There eyes said it all because they were in awe of a grocery store.  They said in there country they had to stand in line for food and there were little or no choices to make.  They said if they just had one store like that in there country it would be swamped with people wanting to shop.  This interaction with these gymnasts made me realize how lucky I was to have been born in the USA.  We live in a land where for now it is pretty good.  We of course can always strive to make things better.  While we are doing this let’s always remember how good things are now and that other countries would love to have it as good as we do.