Our American Past Always Speaks To Us

Modern Tourist Guides Have Helped Raised Tourist Expectations. And They Have Provided The Natives- From Kaiser Wilhelm Down To The Villagers Of Chichacestenango - With A Detailed And Itemized List Of What Is Expected Of Them And When. These Are The Up-to-date Scripts For Actors On The Tourists' Stage.

God Is The Celebrity Author Of The World's Best Seller. We Have Made God Into The Biggest Celebrity Of All, To Contain Our Own Emptiness.

Jefferson Refused To Pin His Hopes On The Occasional Success Of Honest And Unambitious Men; On The Contrary, The Great Danger Was That Philosophers Would Be Lulled Into Complacence By The Accidental Rise Of A Franklin Or A Washington. Any Government Which Made The Welfare Of Men Depend On The Character Of Their Governors Was An Illusion.

In Our World Of Big Names, Curiously, Our True Heroes Tend To Be Anonymous. In This Life Of Illusion And Quasi-illusion, The Person Of Solid Virtues Who Can Be Admired For Something More Substantial Than His Well-knownness Often Proves To Be The Unsung Hero: The Teacher, The Nurse, The Mother, The Honest Cop, The Hard Worker At Lonely, Underpaid, Unglamorous, Unpublicized Jobs.

The Improved American Highway System Isolated The American-in-transit. On His Speedway He Had No Contact With The Towns Which He By-passed. If He Stopped For Food Or Gas, He Was Served No Local Fare Or Local Fuel, But Had One Of Howard Johnson's Nationally Branded Ice Cream Flavors, And So Many Gallons Of Exxon. This Vast Ocean Of Superhighways Was Nearly As Free Of Culture As The Sea Traversed By The Mayflower Pilgrims.