dirt don't hurt

It’s hard to be patriotic these days.  Our own government seems to divide us on more issues to list, and there’s a constant urging to remind us that we are more of an international planet than we thought.  So while on one hand we cherish our patriotic pride, on the other hand we relish the entire world and dine more on foreign cuisines than our own.  (Not that anyone could survive solely on hotdogs and apple pie, although we seem to give it our best shot come summer.) My family comes from Poland.  My great grandparents came to America and settled either in Cleveland to work in the factories or in Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines.  To this day, I still celebrate certain Polish holidays and treasure our traditions.  But for all of the pierogi and oplatek, I never forget that I am more American than anything else.  And there is no better time of the year to remind me than the Fourth of July, a holiday that rings as loud in my heart as the fire...

It never fails that at some point in your life, someone asks you what your most embarrassing moment is.  For 95% of my days, I couldn’t honestly answer this, because nothing ever seemed quite embarrassing enough to warrant a full confession.   Sure, there was the time in fifth grade that I neglected to wear underwear because I was so excited about the new outfit I was wearing for my field trip to the museum, but no one really knew.  There was also the time I caught myself falling asleep during a college class and the professor stopped lecturing and asked me, frankly and sternly, if I was trying to stifle a yawn, which I was, and I was as mortified as I should have been. But nothing compares to the story that pops to mind now, and I can not look at, touch, or even mention a wheelbarrow without snickering to myself.  Because really, if you can’t look back at your most embarrassing moment and burst into laughter, it just wasn’t that exciting and you need to work h...