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Living the American life can be bittersweet, like that song Everybody’s Talkin’ from the movie Midnight Cowboy.   An upbeat tempo yet somber tone sets an ironic theme of stubborn optimism to which every American can relate: personal aspirations despite countless setbacks and heedless freedom to wonder around this great land in hopes of finding a better life or at least a better view.  Now with the pandemic and governmental mandates to stay home, without pay, we’re dealing with a very bitter experience—the worst time ever according to Willie Nelson (who grew up in the Depression Era).  To pass the time, I thought about American influence especially during the 20^th century in music, movies and pop culture.  Being a child of pop music, a religious listener of Top 40 radio back in the day, I formulated a list of what I consider our country’s most ‘American’ songs: not patriotic but songs reflecting the American experience in all our truest intentions, shortcomings and slow-to-realize social evolutions.  The list starts with the American Revolutionary War and ends with a Taylor Swift song.  The list was revised and edited until compiled into an entertaining assortment, well to me.  Too, American pop music—expressed throughout the recent centuries in folk, gospel, blues, country, jazz and rock idioms—not only reveals our collective story but also amplifies our best and worst characteristics: a warring inclination; willingness to die for liberty; and most assuredly fight in print and vocal protest for the right to pursue personal happiness, to live our own lives, and right or wrong to love the very ones who make our hearts sing.

18^th Century/American Revolutionary War Era

Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier was an old Irish song, Siul A Ruin.  Best accompanied by a dulcimer, with a timbre reminiscent of the Old World, and sung in an ethereal soprano voice, the beautiful morose lament pierces the heart with plain lyrics telling of an earlier age when womenfolk remained behind during war while anticipating the loss of their beloved soldier:

“I’d sell my clock.  I’d sell my reel.

  Likewise, I’d sell my spinning wheel

  to buy my love a sword of steel.

  Johnny has gone for a soldier.”

Amazing Grace, written in 1772 by John Newton, known in his day as a drunkard and slave trader, the spiritually profound lyrics were inspired after he survived a violent storm at sea.  Amidst the dangerous turmoil, Newton, not particularly religious though raised a Puritan, called on the Almighty for divine intervention, to save his life and everyone on board.  Miraculously, the storm passed with no harm to crew or vessel.  This universal song of faith and humble acceptance of God’s grace has been performed so often, its status has risen to American anthem.  The lyrics weren’t set to music until decades later, using the British tune New Britain.  From the opening stanza, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,” the song declares a personal revelation of God’s patient love and enduring companionship despite our human faults and failings:

“I once was lost but now am found,

 was blind but now I see.”

19^th Century

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child is perhaps the most poignant of all African-American spirituals, songs by slaves.  This song reportedly was first performed in concert in 1870 according to gospel music archives.  The song also sets the format for traditional blues lyrics, repeating a line two or three times then adding a lyrical twist at the end:

“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

  Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

  Sometimes I feel like a motherless child

  a long way from home, a long way from home.”

The song resonates today as the feelings are universal.  Though the lyrics directly refer to a people taken from their Mother Homeland and plopped into a strange land of unknown language, culture, clothing, music and religion—a place where no one loved and cared for them—the song is relatable to anyone who feels orphaned or out of place.

Wabash Cannonball, originally The Great Rock Island Route, is a traditional American folk song dating back to the 1880s.  The song’s history is said to have come from the hobo community, stragglers who jumped trains to ride from town to town.  The upbeat tempo expresses American freedom and the newfound excitement of speed, which would become an impressive attribute defining our country during the 20^th century:

“From the great Atlantic Ocean to the wide Pacific shore,

 from the queen of flowing mountains to the south belt by the shore,

 she’s mighty tall and handsome and known quite well by all.

 She’s a modern combination called the Wabash Cannonball.”

Early 20^th Century

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, made popular in the 1920s by the Carter Family recording and radio play, was written as a Christian hymn in 1907 by Ada R. Habershon and Charles H. Gabriel.  The Carters rewrote the lyrics for a tear-jerking funeral song: 

“I was standing by my window

 on one cold and cloudy day

 when I saw the hearse come rolling

 for to carry my mother away.

 Will the circle be unbroken

 by and by, Lord, by and by?

 There’s a better home a-waitin’

 in the sky, Lord, in the sky.”

The hymn’s original lyrics spoke of the entire family in time reaching eternity, completing the family’s transition from the physical world to the spiritual hereafter.  But the Carter rendition is more profound and implies a family remains encircled and together even if one member or more are deceased.  The family circle remains unbroken.  The hymn is pure American in its Christian roots and certainty of a better life in the hereafter.

Solace, Scott Joplin’s most beautiful piano rag, is distinctively Spanish influenced.  Written in 1909, the instrumental piece uniquely features a tango beat.  The piece was used in the 1970s’ movie The Sting.  Joplin was an American original, hard working to his own detriment, and as a musical genius intended to combine musical elements from other cultures.  Sit back and relax sometime by listening to this piece, a bridge between Old West saloons and a turn-of-the-century craze called Ragtime.

God Bless America was written by prolific American songwriter Irving Berlin in 1918 to commemorate the end of ‘the war to end all wars.’  The song was revised and recorded again in 1938 as America soon would embark on another world war.  The song is a prayer, purely American in calling on divine guidance and protection specifically for America as a country:

“God, bless America, land that I love.

  Stand beside her and guide her

  through the night with the light from above.”

This Little Light of Mine seems a typical African-American spiritual, given its blues lyric format.  But it was written as a children’s song in the 1920s by Harry Dixon Loes.  Ever since, it continues to be performed in churches and elementary schools around the world.  What makes the song uniquely American is lyrics that relay self confidence, an individual’s assurance that is based in the spiritual.  The song, sung in first person, implies all God’s children possess a unique talent symbolized as an inner light radiating intelligence and value:

“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”

Rhapsody in Blue: The fabulous New York composer George Gershwin performed this brilliant musical tribute, combining jazz and modern American classical elements, in 1924, having written it as a last-minute instrumental composition.  Beginning with a swirling clarinet solo, the symbolism is not lost as the optimistic American who awakens to a brand new day.  Stretching to life and full of pride and purpose, he is soon joined by the rest of the population represented by the orchestra and then catapulted to work by strategic cymbal crashes.  Then Gershwin himself improvises on piano assorted syncopated and dazzling melodic phrases.  The famous finale represents day’s end, with the working American proud of occupational duty and livelihood, tired but content, and ready for well-deserved rest, awaiting dreams of even bigger endeavors.

Blue Skies by Irving Berlin came out in 1926.  The song is overflowing with optimism due to newfound love.  Yet it was penned by someone who suffered dark depression and low self esteem.  Unbelievable.  The work itself is classic American in that its creator is a humble man producing voluminous work and never letting on to his solitary sadness and insecurity:

“Blue skies smiling at me.  Nothing but blue skies do I see.

  … Blue days, all of them gone.  Nothing but blue skies from now on.”

Wildwood Flower was recorded with acoustic guitar in 1928 by the Carter Family.  The tune and lyrics were derivative of another lesser known song, but the Carters’ guitar-playing style, melodic riff with harmony simultaneously, sets it apart as an American folk stylistic masterpiece.  The lyrics tell of a gal wearing colorful flowers in her hair to attract suitors at a dance.  Eventually she settles for a mate who will neglect her as she ages, leaving her feeling like a faded flower still alive in the wild but unappreciated and overlooked.  The upbeat clap-along tempo carrying a song of rue is typical of the American expectation to keep a-goin’ even if heartbroken and unhappy.

Happy Days are Here Again: The originally peppy ditty, chosen by President Franklin Roosevelt as his campaign theme song, was somehow a hit at the beginning of America’s Great Depression.  The song was popularized in 1930 in a movie called Chasing Rainbows.  The upbeat tempo and lyrics ooze American optimism.  Then again, Roosevelt was wealthy and financially secure:

“Happy days are here again!
 The skies above are blue again!

 Let us sing a song of cheer again!

 Happy days are here again!”

Don’t Fence Me In, a Cole Porter and Bob Fletcher song written in 1934, was based on another similar song and reworked by the duo to the familiar hit melding cowboy Westerns with pop orchestra music.  The song inspired a movie or vice versa and represents the American pursuit and longing for land and spacious sky:

“Oh, give me land, lots of land, and the starry skies above.

  Don’t fence me in.

  Let me ride through the wide-open country that I love.

  Don’t fence me in.

  Let me be by myself in the evening breeze

  and listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees.

  Send me off forever, but I ask you please

  don’t fence me in.”

Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing), recorded in 1936 featuring the savage drumming of none other than Gene Krupa, must’ve created a generation gap between fainting Ragtime elders and the energized youth who would be known as Bobby soxers.  Add the growling brass and swirling winds, this Louis Prima tune recorded to fame by the Benny Goodman Orchestra best typifies a new untamed generation of Americans.  The song was first performed by Goodman’s Orchestra at Carnegie Hall as the finale of the premiere Big Band music concert, a music style found highly objectionable by the snooty concert board.  Stressing the off beat, the piece obviously puts front and center elements of African drumming, which would influence the next American generation’s musical taste, rock ’n’ roll. 

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, written by Don Raye and Hughie Prince for the hilarious 1941 Abbott & Costello movie Buck Privates, is a WWII song representing the American attitude that says ‘I’ll do my duty, but I’m gonna have a lot of fun, too.’  GIs frequented canteens to swing dance and jitterbug the night away with lovely gals.  Archival photos and film clips leave the impression young Americans danced throughout the war.  There were dances to raise funds, dances to reinvigorate soldiers, and dances just to socialize and maybe meet prospective sweethearts.  And all that dancing to Big Band music, the greatest music America ever created.  The young Andrew Sisters’ lush harmonies poured over tight lyrics in a brisk tempo catapulted the swingin’ song to the top of the pop charts, number six on a list ranking the most influential songs of the 20^th century:

“He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way.

  He had a boogie style that no one else could play.

  He was the top man at his craft.

  But then his number came up, and he was gone with the draft.

  He’s in the army now, a-blowin’ reveille.

  He’s the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B.”

Mid 20^th Century

I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, by country & Western icon Hank Williams in 1949, was the B side of an uptempo tune typically preferred in those days by jukebox crowds.  But Williams’ sobering poetic lament became a natural American hit, aptly depicting the sights and sounds realized in solitude.  The singer says he’s so lonesome he could cry, yet he doesn’t—very American: 

“Did you ever see a robin weep

  When leaves begin to die?

  Like me, he’s lost the will to live.

  I’m so lonesome I could cry.”

This Land is Your Land: Just another hit song that tells the world our love affair with our country’s breathtaking and diverse terrain.  Penned by Depression folk hero Woody Guthrie in 1940, this standard American folk song was not recorded until 1951.  The entertainer and singer/songwriter had said he was inspired as an Okie hobo arriving in New York City.  Because of Guthrie’s leftist sympathies, the song may still be thought as subversive with secret meanings supporting socialism or communism.  But nevertheless, the song, sung in every school child concert, expresses the majestic land called America is perhaps the apple of God’s eye and intended for anyone to reside and enjoy, as the refrain goes, “This land was made for you and me.”

Rock ‘n’ Roll Music: By one of the genre’s pioneers, Chuck Berry, this song was an anthem and instant smash, earning it the prestigious title of ‘Oldie but a Goodie’: “It’s got a back beat, you can’t lose it.”  The song brings together country & Western flavor with a hard-driving rhythm & Blues beat.  Rock music may have been born in the 1950s, but the beat and spirit particularly in this song would continue to influence countless bands and steer Americans into a new direction when it came to what would be considered pop music.  

Christmastime is Here: America believes in Christmas and has contributed to the world’s collection especially in the 20^th century.  But this 1965 classic from A Charlie Brown Christmas TV special is eloquent though somber, combining elements of jazz piano, brush drumming and beatnik bass.  Written by Lee Mendelson and jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi, the lyrics are as breathtaking as the melody, and at this moment in time not directly related to biblical passage, though the animated show’s storyline is.  The song presents a universal appeal, as mere children ponder if the loving and giving spirit of the holiday season could last throughout the year:

“Christmastime is here, happiness and cheer,

  fun for all that children call their favorite time of year.

  Snowflakes in the air.  Carols everywhere,

  olden times and ancient rhymes of love and dreams to share.”

What a Wonderful World, uniquely sang by beloved American jazz entertainer Louis Armstrong, was written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss.  The song was a quick hit in Great Britain in 1967 but slow charting on American radio.  A throwback to the standard orchestrated American Pop style, Weiss wrote the lyrics specifically to bring the races together, and he wanted Armstrong to sing the song.  Like a jazzy lullaby, the lyrics are carefully crafted to convey optimism, hope and spiritual purpose—traits of American songs that first touch the heart before the mind fully comprehends and respects the message:

“I see skies of blue, clouds of white,

  the bright blessed day and the dark sacred night,

  and I think to myself, ‘What a wonderful world.’”

And When I Die is an uplifting declaration by influential ’60s’ singer/songwriter Laura Nyro.  In the spirit of a raucous minstrel style, her message may have been considered sacrilegious.  She expresses acceptance of the cycle of death and life while asserting no fear of dying.  The song is a sample of the changing attitudes of post-war Americans who by the 1960s were willing to split from traditional Christian teachings and beliefs, even the belief in God.  The song was recorded in 1966 by Peter, Paul & Mary but in 1968 became a major hit for the rock-jazz hybrid band Blood, Sweat & Tears.  And When I Die was a personal favorite of consummate 20^th century American entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr.:

“And when I die, and when I’m dead, dead and gone,

  there’ll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.”

My Way became a major late-career hit for America’s most famous crooner Frank Sinatra.  The lyrics were by songwriter Paul Anka who used the melody from a beautiful instrumental tune known in Europe.  Recorded in 1969, the life-affirming ode was an instant hit and remains interestingly enough a staple in the funeral biz.  The song is a good example of American sentiment that wants no one to grieve their death, though the song’s commentary could apply to the end of a romantic relationship.  The lyrics are stoic yet tender.  With no apologies, the lyrics convey one’s satisfaction and responsibility of life’s path and individual choices good and bad:

“Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew

  when I bit off more than I could chew.

  But through it all, when there was doubt,

  I ate it up and spit it out.

  I faced it all, and I stood tall

  and did it my way.”

Rose Garden, written by Joe South (Games People Play) and recorded in the late 1960s by a few notable artists before country singer Lynn Anderson took it to the top of the cross-over charts in 1970, presents in an upbeat tempo, as Americans like, a hard life lesson: practicality beats sentimentality.

“I beg your pardon.  I never promised you a rose garden.

  Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometime.”

Me and Bobby McGee, Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster’s ode to freedom in having nothing but your jeans, was recorded in the late 1960s by several country artists.  But rock star Janis Joplin would take the song to number one in 1971, her version released to radio after her death.  What makes the song American is an expressed stubborn streak, a don’t-give-a-damn attitude that no one can look down on people who are poor, homeless and rootless:

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Late 20^th Century

Take This Job and Shove It, written by country music outlaw David Allan Coe and sung by Johnny Paycheck, was a huge hit in 1977.  What song could be more blue-collar American?  A sentiment felt by the working man who may not be in control but is willing to say ‘to hell with it’ and go for broke rather than work one more day for The Man in a meaningless job.  Sweet freedom!  Oh, and the song was number one on the charts:

“Take this job and shove it.

  I ain’t working here no more.

  My woman done left and took all the reasons

  I was working for.

  You better not try to stand in my way

  ’cause I’m walkin’ out the door.

  Take this job and shove it.

  I ain’t working here no more.”

I Will Survive, by American songwriters Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris, exemplifies the disco era and was a first-time hit for singer Gloria Gaynor in 1978.  The over-the-top production begins in rubato like a sad ballad but then switches to a joyful dancing celebration and assurance of surviving not only heartbreak but the loneliness and fear of an uncertain future sans romantic love.  The song is about emotional strength.  Americans know they’ll survive anything.  Most of us don’t want no pity party:

“I will survive.

 As long as I know how to love, I know I’ll stay alive.”

Material Girl, by Peter Brown and Robert Rans, was a 1984 super hit by Madonna who took the music world by storm and ruled the decade.  The song is an excellent example of America at the time, overindulging in material things.  But the song’s video storyline culminates with the singer preferring romance with a simple man of little means.  Yeah, right:

“They can beg and they can plead.  But they can’t see the light

  ’cause the boy with the cold hard cash is always Mister Right.”

One Moment in Time was an anthem and pop hit for Whitney Houston, an American singer who arguably possessed the greatest voice of the 20^th century.  The song was written by Albert Hammond and John Bettis for the 1988 Olympics.  Told in first person, the song is about going after your dream, a common theme in America, one that requires courage and belief in oneself:

“I want one moment in time when I’m more than I thought I could be,

  when all of my dreams are a heartbeat away, and the answers are all up to me.”

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer of the alternative rock band Green Day in 1997, returns to an unadorned acoustic sound of guitar accompaniment and male vocal solo enhanced later with a small string orchestra to elevate the song’s message.  The song contrasted the usually loud metal band (American Idiot) and may have been written sarcastically, playing on the phrase ‘good riddance.’  Even so, the song expresses American life in phases, looking back one last time in fondness before moving on to the next stage.  To the rest of the world, the ability to move on in life is our most notable American characteristic:

“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road,

  time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.

  So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why.

  It’s not a question but a lesson learned in time.

  It’s something unpredictable but in the end is right.

  I hope you had the time of your life.”     

21st Century

Where is the Love?, by pop rap troupe Black Eyed Peas, presents a host of messages in rapidly rapped verses countered by a smoothly sung chorus repeatedly asking “Where is the love?”  The 2003 song was a collaboration written by group front man will.i.am along with apl.de.ap, Taboo, Justin Timberlake, Ron Fair, Printz Board, Michael Fratantuno, George Pajon, Fiona Davies M. Fratantuno and J. Curtis.  The song presents concerns and suspicions about American government from the FBI to the CIA, terrorist organizations including gangs and the KKK.  Subsequent verses call on parents to teach their children instead of letting them grow up on their own and even shames adults for letting kids watch movies with adult content.  It is a moralistic message, something for which America is well known:

“People killin’.  People dyin.’

  Children hurt, and you hear them cryin.’

  Can you practice what you preach?
  Would you turn the other cheek?

  Father, father, father, help us.

  Send some guidance from above

  ’cause people got me, got me questionin’

  ‘Where is the love?’”

Shake It Off is a fantastic recent smash pop song (and video) by Taylor Swift, recorded in 2014.  Swift wrote the lyrics with songwriters Max Martin and Shellback.  Thinking about herself as a celebrity and how she is often cast in the gossip tabloids, Swift’s lyrical comments indicates the need to carry a sense of humor when others speak unkindly, cruelly and even falsely about you.  It is an American ideal to maintain a sense of humor about oneself and not worry about what others think and say about us, individually and as a nation:

“I go on too many dates, but I can’t make ’em stay.

 At least that’s what people say, mmm, mmm.  That’s what people say, mmm, mmm.

 But I keep cruisin’, can’t stop, won’t stop moving.

 It’s like I got this music in my mind sayin’ it’s gonna be all right.

 ’Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play.

 And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.

 Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.

 I shake it off.  Shake it off!”

Listen.  We’re all afraid.  Not of the virus so much or even death but of financial ruin.  How are we supposed to pay the bills?  Millions have been laid off, hopefully most with a promise of returning to their jobs in the glorious aftermath—a month, now two, perhaps three, by midsummer …  The only people who are comfortable coasting through this universal economic disaster are the ones with guaranteed monthly income like retirees, the independently wealthy, and the top brass who have the gall to tell the American people to stay home, don’t go to work or school, work online if you can (while figuring a way to pay the bills).  See, they’d never tell us that last part because they are so far removed from the common man, they have no idea the fear of unpaid bills and loss of home, auto, food, furniture and a mountain of other obligations can drive some people to extreme counter reaction.

Listen.  What’s been asked of us—to live without income for a few months while bills mount; to risk homelessness; to break the economy—it’s just too much.  A real war would be preferable.  At least it comes with combat pay.  Two trillion dollars, an obscene amount, somehow will not be enough to tide over American families for more than one month.  Why can’t they understand that?  Many if not most of the American people would prefer to take their chances and keep working their ‘nonessential’ jobs if it means food on the table, money in the bank and a roof over their heads.  But we’re not allowed that option, because the new virus with no vaccine or cure is so contagious plus our nation of plenty lacks hospitals, medical equipment, beds and trained health professionals to care for the projected hundreds of thousands who soon will get deathly ill.

Listen.  Hear that?  Do you sense it?  Prayers! Voiced and silent, with and without tears.  In every language.  Every person around the world is praying simultaneously for divine intervention, a cure, a quick solution.  Americans are notoriously impatient.  But we’re resourceful, too, and will figure out various means to survive: moving, dropping expenses, begging, borrowing, whatever we gotta do.  Pride has no place in hard times. We’ll find our individual resilience and collective dogged determination to get through this crisis.  Overnight we have been forced to rely on one another, family, friends, neighbors, and our government local and state and federal. The government really has done all it can do to help us.  We have been aware of an insurmountable budget deficit for a long, long time.  We’ve needed to toughen up.  Stiff upper lip.  Come on, now. Crying time’s over.  Re-arrange, reshuffle, toss in the air.

Listen.  What’s the worst they can do?  Kick us out of our homes?  Courts are closed and backlogged for months.  Besides, the President has declared no evictions during this pandemic.  Will they cut off the electricity for lights, gas for heat, water for bathing and life itself, internet in order to work at home and for necessary communication?  Maybe but doubtful.  In the age of social media, cutting power and water from tens of millions of American families unable to pay the bills would be a corporate and municipal public relations disaster.  And if they do cut us off, let us reclaim the intestinal fortitude of our backwoods ancestry who built this country.  Portable toilets if we have to.  Bread, water and canned food if that’s all we can scrounge up.  Candles and matches and flashlights to see at night.  Tents and towels for shelter.  Live along rivers, lakes and creeks if need be.  When there’s a will, there’s a way.  Besides the hard times are supposed to be temporary, extremely temporary.  Sleep on it, sleep in shifts, and ask for help: Salvation Army, major churches, food pantries and all the other nonprofits providing sustenance and relief.  The TV ads proclaim “We’re all in this together.”  Let ’em prove it.      

Listen.

Breathe.  Feel.  Observe.  Hear.  Taste.  Touch.  Think.  Read.  Watch.  Work.  Rest.  Walk.

At this moment we’re alive, healthy and aware.  We’re in control more than we realize.  And listen, folks lose their homes every day.  Attachment comes with a price.  Embrace what really matters.

Listen.  This sudden empty time we’ve been given, it’s like a gift.  Isn’t that what we’ve wanted throughout our busy lives, week after week, year after year?  Time to watch children grow and learn and be part of the process.  Time to think.  Time to relax, sit outdoors and watch each day as nature blooms fresh with beauty, contently swaying gently in the breeze, happy just to be alive … again.  As we gaze upon nature, our thoughts turn inward.  Before the crash, were any of us really happy, rushing through the work week, feeling tired all the time, tense about money because there was never enough and now none?  Instead, we’re left with this priceless commodity, an unexpected intangible present because Someone somewhere thought we needed it now.  Soon enough, we’ll never have this gift again—time to change our lives for the better.

Wish that I were as intelligent as Bill Gates.  But like most humans, I do not share his acumen, the enviable and financially rewarding inclination toward mathematics, science, computer science and computer programming.  He reportedly reads 30 books a month.  He was a Harvard University drop out.  He was a teen-age geek.  And like all geniuses God blesses upon our planet from time to time, at a very young age Gates could see the future: Every home would have a computer, not a clunky metal box the size of a closet but something resembling a typewriter.  And lo his vision became our shared reality, by the 1980s and each year with tremendous improvements to today’s light-weight laptops and pads, not numbering one per home but several for each family member even little ones.  Foresightedness is a gift, and a highly intelligent human being knows exactly how and when to use it.

Today at age 64, Gates, the co-creator of Microsoft, is worth $96.3 billion. Throughout his lifetime, he’s often been listed as the richest man in the world.  But now he has fully separated himself from his tech biz to concentrate on far more important matters to billions of people living in poverty.  Bill and his wife, Melinda, formed an international nonprofit specifically to aid the plight of the poor in the world.  The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation formed 20 years ago, according to the website, to “eradicate disease, poverty and hunger globally.”  The motto is: All Lives Have Equal Value, and the nonprofit’s premise: We are impatient optimists working to reduce inequality.

Americans don’t really see a lot of truly poor and destitute people especially children.  But the well-traveled Gates’ family has:  masses of humanity living in deplorable and inhumane conditions in Africa, India, Asia, South America and many other neglected places on the planet.  The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent billions of dollars to reduce infectious and chronic diseases in the world, most fates unknown to Americans and the fortunate First World inhabitants.  The couple is to be applauded, too, for seeking ways to improve America’s public schools.  Education is the key to a bright future individually and nationally, and no one realizes that more than Bill Gates.  His parents afforded him a good education, but they also understood his genius.  He was not like other kids.  He was way too smart, operating in the stratosphere, existing in another realm, so smart that he took to building electronics and computers in the family garage.  A genius like his was bound to get noticed and financial backing when the right idea came along.

As a young wealthy businessman, Gates came across as uncomfortable in the public.  He gave few interviews, seemed quiet, affable but studious.  He was driven, could be argumentative, and indeed had few friends who could match his level of super intelligence.  Perhaps he was so intent on making Microsoft a national name and international product, a worldwide necessity, because he was a bit lonely.  Genius is hard for us regular earthlings to understand.  We’re prone to be jealous: Why’s he so smart (instead of me)?

Even as one of the world’s wealthiest men, for years the wealthiest bachelor on the planet, Gates was not known to date much.  He married later than most but picked quite a mate.  Gates has said fatherhood taught him unexpected lessons, softened him when he wanted to teach his kids how to be fierce and shrewd in business and in life.  That was his formula for success.  But he learned to be human raising kids.  Business competition, nose to the grindstone, seriousness and watching who’s ahead of whom no longer mattered as much as it did during his young adult years.  Those heady traits and tools to success and money mean absolutely nothing to babies and little kids.  He learned a new perspective in life: What really matters is life itself.  The Gates’ children are now adults.  In recent years Bill and Melinda signed The Giving Pledge and have been joined by several of the world’s billionaires called upon by mega-billionaire Warren Buffet to leave more than half of their wealth to charity, even 99 percent of it.

Gates was always aware of his privilege.  He’s been a smart businessman, won and lost along the way, and now has completely severed himself from the company he founded.  No longer content to sit on the board, Gates is growing into another dimension of those who have lived the good life.  Not quite yet the elderly senior statesman, still with a lot of energy and vigor to work and accomplish monumental goals, he intends to be in the front lines of improving life on earth.  Portable toilets and vaccines readily available worldwide are just a couple of sanitary and disease-combating accomplishments Gates is ensuring all humanity has access.

So in our current state of coronavirus fear, the human masses, at least in America, have shown themselves to be the opposite of benevolent. Those who hoard toilet paper, sanitizer and food are not fooling anyone with the excuse of providing for their family.  There are countries in this world whose people do not use toilet paper or if they do use considerably less than Americans … for some reason.  Have we forgotten our own grandparents and great-grandparents didn’t use toilet paper either along with indoor toilets and all the mid-20^th century sanitation we take for granted and can’t comprehend any other way when it comes to ‘doing what comes naturally?’  Shame on the hoarders, Americans who cannot deal with uncertainty.  They’d never make it in the Third World or the world of our not-so-distant ancestors.

In this digital Information Age, the very era Gates had a starring role, there exists the critical masses, the cynics, the non-fans, the ever-suspicious of the wealthy.  Someone like Bill Gates is far removed from his detractors, the majority of Americans who never will equate his financial success and revolutionary creations, his ideas that catapulted everyone on the planet ready or not into the digital age.  Gates is not like us regular people, easy to envy and anger and give up on presumed pipe dreams.  As certain as he was in the 1970s that everyone in the future would have a home computer, he knows that the misery of world poverty—the unsanitary living conditions, disease and starvation—can and will be solved.  Today Bill Gates has nothing but time on his hands coupled with 100 percent mental focus, not unlike the days of his youth when he was more like you and me yet destined for greatness, sparkling with imagination and innovation.

Since its formation in the 1850s, the New York Times has been the city’s main newspaper but in modern times has perceived itself as America’s newspaper.  Problem is most Americans don’t feel the same way especially nowadays.  The New York Times, along with CNN, is constantly chided by our current president as fake news.  Truth is the New York Times is about as good journalism as we have in this country.  I check it every day along with The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other news sources across the country.  There have been rare moments when the New York Times and even the Washington Post did indeed publish fake news stories.  But at each paper, the culprits were individual reporters: the infamous Jason Blair formerly of the New York Times who wrote pure fiction and got it published in the paper on more than one occasion, and then back in the late ’70s that gal formerly of the Washington Post who inadvertently won the Pulitzer Prize for what turned out to be a fictitious feature series on a child heroin addict.  But other than those two black eyes, these newspapers have kept their nose clean with ensuring real and viable journalism.

So when the esteemed New York Times Editorial Board published its endorsement for the next U.S. President and Vice President, I was pleasantly surprised.  The board of course was not going to endorse a second term for Donald Trump but wrote pleasantries on Democrat presidential aspirants Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg along with a couple of atta-boys for Pete Buttigieg and Andrew Yang.  Then the paper went on to recommend Americans vote Elizabeth Warren as the next U.S. President … and Amy Klobuchar for Vice President!  A capital idea!  Very novel.  Very much with the times.  Not one but two female firsts as President and VP.  I never in my life envisioned such a goal.  Wonder why?  Maybe younger adults have foreseen the possibility.

Front page news

During the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times featured a daily meter on the front page indicating chances of a win by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  Hillary was usually 80% and higher, Trump often with as little as 11 points to 20 or so.  And look who won.  And both candidates essentially from New York City.  Boy, were the citizens of New York (City) surprised that their own local-boy-makes-good, the story Trump naturally thought the Times would print but never did … and never will.  The paper does not want to be burned again for printing a story they know their readers would consider fiction.

Shortly after the election, the New York Times editor acknowledged his national media institution was smarting from its dead-wrong prediction.  All smugness gone, the editor decided on a few changes to ensure this sort of thing would not happen again to the New York Times.  The paper had to concede its reporters know nothing of middle Americans, those who live in the vast territory between the two coasts—how they think, how they feel, what they believe collectively.  So the Times would hire scads more reporters who would be stationed throughout the U.S., similar to how the equally longstanding Associated Press reports on the country.  An AP reporter resides in a major city or region for a couple of years, reporting on the important local events before being assigned elsewhere.   The New York Times also was going to expand the religion staff.  Most big city papers have just one person who covers religion and writes about the subject of faith.  The Times’ plan was to hire a few more reporters for a religion staff, each reporter capable of covering specific realms of the world’s major religions.

The 21^st century New York Times had to acknowledge in 2016 it did not have its finger on the pulse of the nation, in contrast to its understanding of the coastal elites who ironically included Hillary and Trump.  Maybe this year a presidential election meter will not be featured on the front page of the New York Times or anywhere in the paper.

Not who but when

Getting back to the novelty of two women leading the Free World as U.S. president and vice president, endorsed by the New York Times, both women make the paper’s grade when seeking to build bridges across the nation’s vast mid section: Klobuchar from Minnesota and Warren from Oklahoma.  Klobuchar was the candidate who stood outdoors in falling snow to announce her bid for the White House.  She’s got grit.  Perhaps that should be her motto.  Warren is similar, highly educated and a hero of economic affairs.  She is practical about family budgets and carries that pragmatism into ideals to restructure the national budget, which still is heavily pro-military spending.  She is no-nonsense, thinks like the common man instead of the wealthy, and has real-life experience with family hardship and lost economic dignity.  As for her claim of a smidgeon of Native American ancestry, not only is it true, she looks very much like any white American who claims a tiny bit of Native American heritage.  Both candidates will knock the socks off their Republican contenders (Trump/Pence) in debate.  Smart money is on the women.

Sen. Warren, D-Massachusetts, is 70.  She is married with children from a previous marriage and by now a grandmother.  She had been an esteemed law professor at several universities including the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard.  As the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, she served on committees on aging; banking, housing and urban affairs; and health, education, labor and pensions.  Her bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston is in speech pathology and audiology, and she once taught in a public school working with these special-needs students.  But Sen. Warren’s blue-collar childhood in Oklahoma City and Norman, Okla., sets her apart from most who seek the highest office in the land.  Her father worked in sales before a debilitating heart attack. The family never recovered financially.  Her mother, a housewife, had to pick up work as a sales clerk while barely a teen-ager Elizabeth started working as a waitress.  In high school she was an outstanding debater for which she won a college scholarship.  She married, had kids, and the family moved to New Jersey.  After divorcing in the late 1970s, she kept the last name and a few years later married a law professor who is her husband today.     

Sen. Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, is 59.  She is the daughter of a sports reporter and a teacher.  She became a lawyer and later was elected to the U.S. Senate where she gained notice for passing more legislation in one year than her peers.  She is married with a grown child.  She cites a hospital policy for motivation to seek high office.  When her child was born, the hospital allowed only a 24-hour recovery for mother and newborn.  She took the issue to the state which passed a law mandating at least a 48-hour hospital recovery after giving birth, which President Bill Clinton later signed into law making it standard policy across the U.S.

Warren’s platform includes policies on the issues of farmers, opioid crisis, student debt, corporate taxes and big tech regulation.  She has become controversial on her stance for universal healthcare.  She understands something most Americans do not: While half the country works for large industries that provide decent insurance, the other half are self-employed or work for small businesses with no insurance or outlandishly expensive and unaffordable insurance plans.  Klobuchar’s reputation is much more moderate, yet she is pro-choice and supports LGBT rights.

Both ladies … excuse me, women … excuse me again, candidates think ‘Americans first’ when it comes to real family concerns: health insurance, prescriptions, living wages, fair taxes, schools.  Will either Warren or Klobuchar be great presidents or a good team as Prez and VP?  Should anyone care if they are the first women to hold the nation’s two highest offices?  Will it be men against women in the voting booth?  If nothing else, at least in the year 2020 the esteemed New York Times had the wherewithal to endorse these two presidential candidates who happen to be women.  Will the Times’ presidential endorsement matter to those living in America’s heartland?  When it comes to New York City and its snooty newspaper, they’ll likely pay it no mind.

Hi Death.

Hey.

How’s it goin’?

Oh, same old, same old.

Imagine so.

So, you wanted to see me?

Not really.  OK, no more than anyone else, right?

Right.  I hear from lots of people every day.  What’s the problem?

Just tired, I guess.  I think I’ve seen all this world I wanna see, done all I wanna do.  Nothing to look forward to. I just don’t like the times I live in now.

You sound depressed not suicidal.

Aren’t they the same, I mean, in the end?

Depression is life itself.

Huh.  Death, I never thought of it that way.  Seems we think everything’s supposed to be one big party of happiness, we don’t know how to deal with the long stretches of ‘nothing special going on.’

That’s right.  I hear that a lot … for centuries … since the beginning.  You wouldn’t believe the people I hear from who are alive right now.  They have everything going for them: looks, health, job, family, home, money, lots of things.  And still, they’re just not happy.

I get it.  Guess I always suspected such.  Happiness comes from within.  I should know that by now.

But you forget.  I hear ya.

The older I get, the longer the slumps, the darker the path.  You know what I mean?

Where I’m at, it’s lights out, totally dark.

Oh yeah.

C’mon!  You aren’t ready to be with me.  Cheer up!  You got lots going for you.  I know. Make a list of all the good things you still want to do.

Before you and I go waltzing off into my final sunset?

Yeah!  Always liked your dark sense of humor.  My style.

Takes one to know one.

Then after you check over your list, don’t put off anything because of money or the feeling of no hope for money.  Think more magically.  Or like you think, more mystically.  Envision you living your best life on earth.  And don’t forget to enjoy the gifts—and you have a lot of them— all around you.  Life is lived in the Now.

Mmm.  Very Zen.  You read what I read.

You know me, girlfriend.  I know who I’m talking to.

And remember, you have more to do with the end than I do.  The time, the circumstances, the age, the place.  I just come collecting when you’re ready.  Not the other way around.

See, Death, that’s hard for me to believe.  There are so many who suffer and then die.  I think if they had something to hold on to, like a cure or surgery, they would have endured.  We celebrate that life-affirming story all the time.  That gives us hope, not the other way around, the final goodbye.

You’re looking at this all wrong.  First, life is for learning.  You don’t learn anything during the good times.  Second, no one lives forever.  Third, life is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.

Life is the hardest thing we’ll ever do.  So it’s like we’re doing time on earth, like a prison sentence?

Is that how you wanna think about your time on earth?

Some people live their lives that way.  I never wanted to think of mine as a prison sentence.  I want to be optimistic, but I get down sometimes, especially when things aren’t going my way.

It’s only human.  Don’t beat yourself up.  You’re one of the most optimistic people I know, and I know everybody who is and ever was.

OK, so I’m optimistic, a dreamer, and I’m not the only one.  That doesn’t mean I’m … happy with the way life is going right now.  Sometimes life is harder to live than other times.  It seems there are roadblocks, personality conflicts, situations I am not in control of.

Where’d you get all that psycho babble?  In control?  Life is like one long crazy roller coaster ….

OK, OK.  I get the metaphors about life.  I think my problem is more about society, American society, modern times, media, social media—my era.  The message engrained since maybe TV, color TV, is how neat and clean life should be, could be, can be.  My generation and my parents’ and the younger ones have spent most of our lives watching life: dramas and comedies, characters, other times, other places. Wait. That’s it!  Isn’t it, Death?  That’s the reason for a collective depression: spending the majority of our waking hours watching other people do stuff.  That’s the problem!  And it leads to overwhelming sadness within each of us.

Well, that’s very insightful.

And the best thing is we can solve it!  Just monitor our time spent ‘watching’ life and spend most of our time ‘doing’ life! Wow, I’ve had an epiphany, don’t you think?  And, I owe it all to you.  Death, you are the best listener a human can have.

OK, I wouldn’t go that far.

No, no, really, people should appreciate you, how close you are to each of us, with us like a shadow each and every day we live and breathe.  Why, you’re nothing to fear at all!

Now, hold on, I have a reputation to maintain.  I like a little fear in my human beings.

Yeah, but the fear leads most of us to keep on living, to choose life!  Oh, how life affirming a talk with Death can be!

Shhhh!  See YOU later.

Much later! (Wink)