Everything Is Interesting In Its Own Way

There was a song written by Ray Stevens titled Everything is Beautiful from 1970. It began with little children singing Jesus loves the little Children, then the lyrics and music are from Stevens himself. Everything is beautiful 
In its own way,
 Like the starry summer’s night, 
Or a snow covered winter's day.

 And everybody's beautiful
 In their own way.
 Under God's heaven
 The world's gonna find a way.

 There is none so blind 
As he who will not see. 
We must not close our minds. 
We must let our thoughts be free. 

For every hour that passes by
 You know the world gets a little bit older. 
It's time to realize that beauty lies
 In the eyes of the beholder.

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Nothing to see in the Heartland?

From the first time I heard it was a favorite. It’s true. Everything is beautiful in its own way. That’s what someone who can see the world through the eyes of a child would say. It’s the way many people viewed the world over the ages, and it’s the way we might consider viewing it today.

Another way to say it would go like this: Everything is interesting, in its own way, like the verdant fruited plain, or the things we see every day.

Now, it doesn’t mean we just go along seeing bunnies and rainbows all the time, but there are interesting animals to see, and we do have rain followed by prismatic displays now and then. I’ve heard people complain “We drove all the way across Kansas, and it was so boring!” That always amazes me. So you drove across one of the most productive agricultural regions of the world, the breadbasket of North America, and you noticed nothing? I actually feel sorry for people like that. Did you miss the grain elevators? Were there no Union Pacific trains stretching to the horizon? No cattle? No oil wells? No charming towns? No contour farming? No wooden box cars now serving as sheds and hen houses? No post offices with WPA murals? No stone fence posts? No dramatic sky? No Flint Hills? No sturdy farm folk? No wheat of any stage of growth waving like an ocean in the wind? Nothing to smell after a rain? No Walter Chrysler boyhood home, no Dorothy, no scarecrow or tin man or cowardly lion? No John Brown? No irrigation? No frontier? No pioneers? No Wild West? No windmills or water towers? No satisfaction that the sandwich you had for lunch started here? Nothing to see in the Heartland? There are even ad campaigns based on this faulty idea. The promoters of Indiana Beach told us a million times “There’s more than corn in Indiana!” Well, of course there is.

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This interest, this curiosity, was a gift of my dad. He noticed things

The ability to take interest, to observe, to catalog, is a gift. It might derive from the ability to amuse oneself, a skill much lacking these days. It’s a desire to notice. It’s a determination to actually see and observe the world around us. It helps if there’s a willingness to be in awe of things far greater than ourselves. Introverts will understand this need for quiet and reflection and awe. This interest, this curiosity, was a gift of my dad. He noticed things. He was interested in learning, even if what he learned had no immediate application. He grew up as an only child in an era when high tech meant radio. He learned to amuse and entertain himself, and he could do this at every stage of his life. He was an ardent reader for 75 years. He followed the news his entire life. He was thrilled by the American story and he was honored to be a part of it. Sometimes when I came to him with a question he would answer it if he could, or help me look it up. Even when I lost interest in the answer, he wouldn’t. He was driven to find the answer because he had an interest in everything. He had a deep religious faith that made the world an astounding place, filled with wonder. He would go places he had heard of but had never seen. He would take different roads to go to a familiar place because he wanted to see what he hadn’t seen before. In Europe during the war, a casual invitation to take a ride in a plane gave him an aerial view of the greatest fleet in history off the coast of Normandy in June, 1944. Another invitation took him on a jeep ride beyond the front where he saw another soldier win the Silver Star for discovering that the Germans had pulled back behind the Moselle River. He saw the top Allied brass in Paris. He took a detour to walk around Stonehenge because he’d heard of it. He passed all of those memories to my brothers and me, but better yet, he passed along the interest and the curiosity. For more than 50 years now there has been a steady chorus of doomsayers chanting how the rivers are burning and the rain is acidic. We hear how the natural resources have been depleted and we shouldn’t have used them in the first place. Pollution has ruined everything and the smog doesn’t allow us to see the sun or go outdoors safely. The water’s dirty, the land should be given back to the coyotes, and Heartlanders are just ignorant bigots. This does not match reality. It’s a beautiful country, and it’s big. One can drive for days and not make it from one coast or border to the other. There are mountains and plains and deserts and forests and swampland and lakes and rivers and fine people everywhere you go. It’s stunning and majestic. Phrases from songs pass through my head. Purple mountain majesty. Spacious skies. Amber waves. Pilgrim feet. Ribbon of highway. Redwood forests. Diamond deserts. Dawn’s early light. It’s magnificent.

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When I don’t have GPS I have to pay attention, and that makes for a more interesting and perhaps a longer life

Lots of people enjoy and use the GPS functions on their phones. My IT guy gave me a funny look when I asked him to delete it from my phone, but I insisted. I did that because I noticed that if I used GPS to go to a destination, I couldn’t remember how to go there the next time without using it again. It made me instantly and almost totally dependent on it. That dependence is anathema to me. It denies me many choices and opportunities. It also means that I get lost sometimes, but that’s okay, because when I’m lost I see things I wouldn’t see otherwise. If I consult a map or make a list of roads and turns to get somewhere, then getting there the next time is much easier. Because I have to pay attention, I learn and notice more and I don’t get as aggravated as when hearing an artificial voice tell me to ‘proceed to the route.’ When I don’t have GPS I have to pay attention, and that makes for a more interesting and perhaps a longer life. So being curious and interested makes every place interesting, even if it’s not interesting to some people. Remember, it’s a beautiful country. Dinah Shore understood this very well. Even if you’d rather be driving the Super Stock Dodge owned by the little old lady from Pasadena, you get the point. “See the USA in your Chevrolet 
America is asking you to call.
 Drive your Chevrolet through the USA
America's the greatest land of all!”

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