President's Report

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

It almost did not come about, but with the courage of many patriots, we formed the first democracy, actually a republic, in almost two thousand years.  We will never know the exact cost in lives, energy, fortunes, and suffering that it took to form this United States. Thirteen very different colonies joined together to form the United States of America.
When I was growing up, I discovered a book on our family bookshelf that was entitled, “The Story of America in Pictures”. The book begins with three pictures of the Indians of North America in the Forest, in the Plains, and in the West.  It goes on to show in pictures ten periods of the history of our country.  Each picture has an explanation of what one is seeing.  I was fascinated with this book, and I would thumb through the pages and study it for hours. I was very young, and for some reason this book made a lasting impression on me. After my father died my mother broke up our home. That was years ago, and she moved around several times. Somehow In all those years, I still ended up with the book.  The last picture is entitled, “Television Begins”. The book was published in 1940.  Thus, it does not include the last eighty-five years. I wonder what pictures the editor would have used if it was published today.

I used to drive my family crazy when we were on a trip.  I would have to stop at all the historical markers along the highway. When we lived in Sacramento, I collected gold miner pans and tools.  We lived a mile from an old cemetery where one of the members of the Lewis and Clark Party is buried.  In the same cemetery was buried Elitha Donnor who survived that terrible winter in the California High Sierras.  I visited both graves. When I was twenty-two, I hitch hiked all through Europe visiting as many historical sites as possible.  I have a piece of the Berlin Wall sitting on my shelf. My wife and I led five trips to Israel, and there I was overcome with all the history and of course, I brought some of it home.  There is history all around us, it’s In St. Augustine, Oviedo, Winter Springs and even here in Tuscawilla. We can learn a great deal about studying our past. But the trouble is that we don’t, and we go on to repeat the same mistakes.  Marcus Gavey says that, “A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”  We have roots in America. It is important for all of us to study the foundational principles that shaped our country and that have given it the basis to continue on all these years.

This month we celebrate the two-hundred and forty-ninth year of the founding of our country.  In spite of what some people  may believe, we live in a great country, and each of us needs to do our best to keep it that way.  Happy Fourth of July!

Dr. Kurt Miericke

THOA President

Publisher, Tuscawilla Today

Email: THOAws20@gmail.com