Thanksgiving appreciation exercise: list some great Americana

A lot of us, myself included, tend to complain about Americans and our various American follies on these forums. For a change, let's enumerate the best things about America, those things for which we're grateful.

I'll start.
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free speech
bebop jazz
the Badlands
The Wright Brothers
the internet
San Francisco
vertical skateboarding
Star Trek
The Doors
Id Software
Michael Jordan
Hunter S. Thompson
Veterans For Peace
The Church of the Subgenius
H.P. Lovecraft
Jello Biafra
Pinbot
Mark Twain
The X Files
James Brown
The Simpsons
separation of church and state
Ralph Waldo Emerson
turkeys
Fender Twin Reverb amplifiers
The Peace Corps
Abstract Expressionism
Moby Dick
Pow Wows
Drive In movies
Jimi Hendrix
Sub Pop records
Gun metal blue 1966 GTOs
Cowboy Boots
Grizzly Bears
Bluegrass
Chicago-style hot dogs

Your turn.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Delta Blues
the Florida Keys
Edward Hopper
the Boston Red Sox
Fenway Park
the coast of Maine
New York pizza
Ernest Hemingway
Cajun food
the Smoky Mountains
state fairs

Alaskan king salmon
Walla Walla sweet onions
Whitley Heights in Hollywood
Hackney's on Harms, outside Chicago

(yeah, yeah, most of mine involve food, I know)

I'm kind of afraid to go back there, I don't want to see the logging.

and how about some musicians? (I hope they're all born in the US, but if not, I'm thankful for 'em anyway)

Randy Newman
Jim Croce
Christine Lavin
Aaron Copeland
Samuel Barber

my brain's fried, can't think of any more....

Sunday doubleheaders
Muscle cars

Bands
Guided by Voices
The Minutemen
The Decendants
Black Flag

Other
San Francsico Sourdough Bread
Trader Joes
Bowling Shirts
Redwood Trees
Drive in theaters

Norman Rockwell

crab cakes
doonesbury
baseball caps
keith haring
greenwich village & washington square park

Come on! Don't let this thread drop, if we don't have enough Americana I may have to leave this country for one with a richer heritage. Remember!

Spacious skies
Amber fields of grain
Purple mountains' majesty
The Fruity Plane ;-)

Don't let the spirit die in the archives.

Greatest....toy....ever....

And a few other noteworthies:

Benedict Arnold (before he sold out)
Thomas Paine (British Born, but the quintessential American political philosopher)
Tecumseh
Henry David Thoreau
Herman Melville (Organism mentioned Moby Dick, but he's so much more than that)
John Brown
Abraham Lincoln
Julia Ward Howe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Richard Wright
Phil Ochs

I should have more, but am too tired.

George Gershwin
Ella Fitzgerald
Pete Seeger
Yoyo Ma
Georgia O'Keefe
Paul Robeson
the Tournament of Roses Parade
all undeveloped segments of the Atlantic coast
ethnic, spiritual, sexual, and cultural diversity
DU, of course


many many other things... :-)

Central Maine
Autumn in New England
New England town meetings
The Appalachian Trail
John Steinbeck
Jack Kerouac
The Great Plains
The Bill of Rights
New Orleans
the Everglades
Public Television
Mississippi Hill Country Blues (McDowell, Burnside, Kimbrough, et al.)
Parliament-Funkadelic
The New Deal
Studs Terkel
Lewis and Clark
The New Deal
Unitarian Universalism
Hammond B3 organs
Johnny Cash
Lyle Lovett
Lucinda Williams
Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge Parkway
WKRP in Cincinnati
Ultimate Frisbee
John Prine
John Hyatt
Mississippi John Hurt
Diners
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/">NCBI
The NIH
restriction enzymes (sorry, I'm lapsing into geekiness here..)

Your turn...

Florida Manatees
Tom Waits
Roy Orbison
Calvin and Hobbes
Jules Knipl, Real Estate Photographer
The National Football League

and Statue of Liberty.

langston hughes
maya angelou
zora neale hurston
bill cosby
dick gregory
richard pryor
nikki giovanni

...and soul food

the way he slides down the mountain of snow, I'm sorry but when I think Americana, I think cheese and strange things that stick out in our memories.

There are just some things about this country and its inhabitants that are undeniably American. Some of them are direct experiences, some of them are causes of strange and unique feelings, some of them are just people you've seen on TV or books you've read.

We have a culture. For Thanksgiving, I want to think about our culture's "greatest hits".

"A tree grows in Brooklyn", "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Socialist, activist, union organizer, prisoner, presidential candidate. We need more like him.

Aaron Copeland
Horicon Marsh (WI)
boundless optimism

(not the freeper repukes bother to understand these things)

Chet Atkins
Frank Zappa
Steve Reich
Philip Glass

Thomas Jefferson
Mark Twain
Ben Franklin
Jack London
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
John Steinbeck


Buckminster Fuller
Philip Johnson
Frank Gehry
Frank Lloyd Wright

Velveeta (though technically we should apologize for that)
Tobacco
The automobile
The cotton gin
Assembly line manufacturing
Lightbulbs
Phonograph
Film
Movies


Oh, and so, so many more.

The Professor

So is a lot of the processed foodcraps invented in this country. :-)

We took perfectly good legitimate food, and then somehow managed to con the country into believing that if it isn't from a box or a can, it was uncool, not good for you, or otherwise just a sign of lazy housekeeping.

!

Ben Franklin
Frederick Douglass
Abraham Lincoln
Teddy Roosevelt
Nickolai Tesla
The Wright Brothers
Samuel Barber
FDR
JFK
LBJ
NASA
General Wesley Clark
Bill Clinton
Al Gore
Shirley Chisholm
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Sen. Daniel Inouye
Crazy Horse
Sitting Bull
George Plimpton
Aaron Sorkin
Martin Sheen
Gloria Steinem
Helen Thomas
Jimmy Carter
George Soros
The Dixie Chicks
Sheryl Crowe

That's just off the top of my head.

But I'll grant you the point because (1)he immigrated, (2)he did some amazing and important work in the USA, (3)his richest sponsors were Americans, (4)his arch-nemesis was Thomas Edison, and (5)he nearly caused an earthquake in NYC. Just don't try to claim Einstein...

IIRC, George Soros is Greek.

Come to think of it, this is another great thing about America: people from other countries come here just to be great!

The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Joffrey Ballet
BB King
Emily Dickinson
Mark Twain
Benjamin Franklin
Annie Dillard
Hery David Thoreau
Benjamin Banneker
The Metropolitan Opera
The Smithsonian Museums
The Mississippi River
The Allegheny Mountains
Teddy Bears
Amish Country.......

Let's keep it going! :-)

and kilgore trout.

Our National Parks
The Great Lakes
Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"
John Wayne in "The Shootist"
Lucille Ball
Comic books
Mark Twain
Warren Spahn (RIP)
Lions on Thanksgiving
Our First Ladies - all of them
The Smithsonian
Woodstock
Georgia O'Keefe
Ethel Merman
Rodgers & Hammerstein
Fala
Lewis & Clark
Grandma Moses
Bing Crosby
Saturday Night Live
Sinatra
UAW
AFL-CIO
Mother Jones
John D. Rockefeller
Henry Ford
Walter Reuther
Dr. Seuss
Charles Shultz
Thomas Edison
Robert Fulton
Davy Crockett
Bobby Kennedy
Walt Disney
Walter Cronkite
Ellis Island
Chief Joseph
Mackinac Island
Bogey
"The Day The Earth Stood Still"
snowblowers
football, baseball, basketball, hockey (thanks, Canada!)
Thanksgiving

13,000 lakes right here in Minnesota, oh man, too much stuff to mention!
All of YOU wonderful people too!

E Pluribus Unum; Sic Semper Tyrannis


http://www.monticello.org/

http://www.history.org/






In 1607, 13 years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, a group of 104 English men and boys began a settlement on the banks of Virginia's James River. They were sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, whose stockholders hoped to make a profit from the resources of the New World. The community suffered terrible hardships in its early years, but managed to endure, earning the distinction of being America's first permanent English colony.
http://www.historyisfun.org/



After John White's departure from Roanoke Island in August 1587, neither he nor any other Englishman ever saw the colonists again. When he reached England on November 8, White immediately began to assemble a fleet to carry supplies to America and within four months was ready to sail; however, the impending attack by the Spanish Armada led the Privy Council to prohibit his leaving England. Two of his smaller ships — the 30-tun bark Brave and the 25-tun pinnace Roe — were deemed inadequate for defense purposes and permitted to sail. On the voyage White's party followed the usual practice of engaging in piracy on the way. Unfortunately for both White and the colony, French ships attacked them and took their supplies. They limped back to England, and White did not reach Roanoke Island until 1590.

~snip~

Finally, on 18 August 1590, White reached Roanoke Island. There he found the houses "taken downe" and the word "CROATOAN" carved on the palisade that had been built around the settlement site during his absence. Rough weather prevented their going to Croatoan and forced them to return to England rather than winter in the Caribbean as they first planned.
http://www.nps.gov/fora/search.htm

We Liitle Old Ladies rock When it comes down to doing the right thing versus looking good we get a little wierd.

Dr. Spock
Edgar Allen Poe
Stephen King
Ann Rice
John Philip Sousa
Dixieland Jazz
Rock 'n Roll
Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Dallas Cowboys
Harley Davidson
The Interstate Highway System
The Rocky Mountains
The Mighty Mississippi
Native Americans

Eleanor and Teddy , too.
Unions.
Walt Whitman.
Hemingway & Fitzgerald &Dorothy Parker.
The New Moon.
Clear nights over the sea.And the sound of crashing waves in the middle of the night. The smell of the bay at low tide.
Seeing the same cormorants on the same branch of the same tree at the same time every night.
The Full Moon.
Sally Winfrey.
My Parents.
My Children.
My friends.
DU and the assurance it gives me that not everyone is asleep at the the wheel.
The bad times which have taught me so much more than the good times.
Hope...a gift from somehere I'm never sure I deserve.
Fireworks and lighted boat parades.