Phone call in the morning from Joan, to wish Sean a happy birthday; she caught him just as he was heading out the door for school, good timing. Then I forgot to wish him a happy birthday myself, big dummy. Barb and I picked up a pair of speakers for his stereo set as we came back from lunch in town at the Family Noodle Shop, where we each had big, hot bowls of miso ramen; I was so hungry that I finished every bit of mine, to the last drop of broth. B’s been suffering some nasty congestion lately, but said the miso helped clear her head and made her feel much better. Nothing like hot soup.

Sollars Elementary School has an after-school program for kids who need help with their homework. Air Force personnel show up to tutor them, and I’ve been trying for weeks to get it into my schedule. When I finally got there, I left wondering what I’d gotten myself into; it’s been a while since I’ve had to try to keep a kid focused on school work for an hour, although in the same breath I should say in the kid’s favor that she kept plugging away through the whole hour with only minor distractions, and got all her homework done.

Not mountains, not deserts, not Indians, not finances or swindlers, not distance, not high interest rates or a scarcity of labor, not politicians whether venal or stupid, not even a civil war or its aftermath. Americans were a people such as the world had never before known. No one before them, no matter where or how they lived, had had such optimism or determination. It was thanks to those two qualities that the Americans set out to build what had never before been done.

– Stephen Ambrose, Nothing Like It In The World