Taking care of our own backyard

Every year my backyard gets away from me. This year, it happened a little earlier than usual. It normally happens in August, but we had a very wet June and plenty of heat so far in July so already my backyard needs copious amounts of glyphosate. I’ll start spraying when I complete this article.

The rebellion going on in Cuba has reminded me that we’ve focused a lot of attention to the middle east since September 11, 2001, which is understandable, but recall that when we finally tracked the guy down who was responsible for it, he was from Saudi Arabia and was hiding out in Pakistan. We went to war with neither.

In 1823 our United States President James Monroe declared the “Monroe Doctrine” saying,

“The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization” He was referring to European powers at the time, but we have faced others since.

We aren’t so concerned with European colonization now, but there are other forces at play in our hemisphere. There is unrest in Cuba. People have been killed and hundreds have been arrested. A few are even waving United States Flags, but they are all shouting “Libertad.”

Venezuela is in chaos with an authoritarian state that has questionable election practices. We have refugees streaming up from the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras), and our neighbors to the south, Mexico, aren’t quite a first-world nation. Their average income is roughly a third of ours.

I’m not against immigration. I would prefer that it be legal, but like my own home, I fear that my country needs to take care of its backyard. As we pull out of Afghanistan, I hope we will revisit this.

I also need to add a personal note about an incident that happened last week. I took my 115-pound doggy out for a walk and she gave me a good tug. Before I knew it, I was wallowing on the ground like beached carp.

Between old age and some very old orthopedic issues (old car accident), I don’t have the strength in my legs that I used to. I still have upper body strength so I was crawling over to pull myself up on the bumper of a neighbor’s car and a nice lady named Myra pulled over and then gave me a hand up. I didn’t get her last name, but I recall that she had nicely painted nails and smelled like perfume. I probably made her late for work, but she deserves a shout-out. It’s kindness like this that drives us to live in McCook.