Think We've Got Problems?

Ya know, there's so much political banter going around that it just makes my head spin. Flip on the tube and within a half hour, you'll hear someone new(usually some dingbat celebrity) talking about how bad off our country is. No one will dispute we have some major issues in the life of our country at this snippet of time. War being first, but then growing discontent with government has to be a close second. Throw in the shrinking middle class, immigration and the usual hot button topics of each side and, well, is your head spinning just from reading this?

I just finished one of the longest hours of my life. Surgery? Being told of loss? Watching someone I love die? Nah-helping my 16 year old with an American history report on Reconstruction.

First off, I've forgotten just how difficult high school probably is. Granted, I was an underacheiver(and proud of it, man) back in the day, but this kind of stuff just had some elements that have to be quite difficult for a 16 year old to comprehend. And of course, she's a teen . Stuff that happened 150 years ago is about as useful as canvas and paint to me.

Man, Reconstruction. What a horrid, horrid time in our past. I walked away saying, yeah, America has problems now, sure. But our problems aren't even a fraction of those they had in the 1860s and 70s. God knows how Lincoln survived it, really. The destruction of the union, the burning of half the country, the hatred over slavery, the formation of the Klan, disagreements everywhere and all with a population that was, at most, about 20% literate. How could one man even think governing a country like this would be possible? But, apparently we're still here.

Either way, this report just put it all back into perspective. We've got problems, but they aren't problems like we've been through already. THOSE are the ones we should look back on with pride-we survived that and we'll survive this.