Edelweiss

While watching "The Sound of Music" I'm thinking about how I am proud of my German heritage. (And yes, I do know that it takes place in Austria.) In fact, when I went to Germany many years ago, all I would eat was sausage and chocolate (and broccoli, but that's beside the point), which proved my German-a-tude. If it had been appropriate to give beer to a six-year-old, I'm sure I would have loved that too. I love my German father, who, after all these years, still has not fully grasped English idioms. I love almost all of my relatives over there whom I have met, and I look very much forward to when I can go over on my own and experience it all. But what I really think about while watching this is how I wish I loved my country as much as Captain von Trapp loved his. He couldn't even get though "Edelweiss" without crying, because he knew that his homeland would never be the same again. I will never love America like that. It's too corrupt, too ruined, and has no sense of humor about it. I love California, but I was meant to live in a different time, and I should have been one of those old hippies who got burnt out on America and acid and became an ex-patriot somewhere glamorous, like France. I'll stay here for now, but if Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman ever become president, forget it, I'm out of here. And on to Austria, with all the nuns.