This weekend we went to go see the restored B-17 that landed at Hillsboro airport, part of a barnstorming tour across America. For $400 you can take a ride in the Flying Fortress, and for $5 you can climb around in it.
It was oddly affecting. We just wanted to see a cool airplane, but walking through it, you couldn't help but feel the bigger story: a bunch of 18, 19-year-old farm boys, in 1930s-era technology, putting their lives on the line to save the world. True.
This January I put an American flag sticker in the window of my car, something I can't imagine doing at any other time in my life. It just dawned on me that whatever happens that will take this world forward, the ol' USA will have to play a major role, the leadership role, probably. Who else would it be?
We're too fractured to pull it off right now. The story that pulled us together back then doesn't work anymore. What will our new uniting story be? Where will it come from?
It's happening, really, but I get impatient.