PERSPECTIVE.

dating back to the Azteca and Incas. Machu Picchu for example dates back to 1450 AD.

I grew up in Jacksonville so I had the kind of relationship with St. Augustine that you can only get from frequent field trips.

I later did a study abroad in London when I was 20. I originally went with the idea of "American Exceptionalism" deeply ingrained in my psyche. I thought I was special and that people would want to know me just because I was American.

What I discovered was humbling in a way that only international travel can teach you. Part of that was definitely the history. I was struck how the Tower of London was hundreds of years older than St.Augustine and yet decidedly more modern. I took note that there were glass bottles in the Tower Museum that were older than my entire Country.

Along with that, I also discovered that American tourists can be loud and boorish. Combined with the worst of American TV such as Dallas and Dynasty (showing my age), Americans were not as highly thought of as I thought they would be. I found myself trying to blend into the background a lot. Luckily, I had a Floridians wardrobe so I needed to buy clothes locally for the weather. I could blend in as long as I didn't open my mouth.

But yes, I agree with you. We don't really have a firm grasp of the scope of history until we think outside the US.

I would be devastated if it burned. I can't imagine the pain in Paris.

Some of the geology of this country is astonishing and worth every bit of reverence you can have. The Arches National Park and the Grand Canyon, for example. There are petroglyphs that are hundreds of years old. Archeological finds include arrowheads that are over 1,000 years old (and the design is that of the Denisovan people who lived in Europe before Indoeuropean speakers migrated there) and dinosaur bones that are millions of years old.

Every place has its own history and each deserves its own respect.

Europe was already building cities by then.

And I could see the Parthenon from my bedroom.

I would tell people that you couldn’t swing a dead cat in Greece without hitting something that was built 2500 years ago!

Anything from the '50s or '60s is ready to be torn down or refurbished in this country. In other countries, people still live in houses that are centuries old. When I visited the USSR with my grandmother and her peace group, we learned that the Kremlin was built at the time of Columbus - and we visited a 6th-century church! Boggles the mind!