Being Woke is Such A Joke!

A lazy late winter's afternoon for this peafowl.

The High Meadows are just now greening, but the low meadows have been green for months. What I like about this shot is that it shows natures abstract work at 100%.

The pile of dirt is all that remains of the former Valley View Mall in Dallas. The dirt pile is also sitting on the actual site of the former anchor store,Sears. The construction on the redevelopment is now fully underway and the changes are going to be amazing. Just the past 18 months,the landscape in North Dallas has changed so much, its now a totally different place that even when you can remember how it was, it is still almost unrecognizable.

As I was about to land back in this country in Miami, having gone out of the US for the first time on a trip to Brazil, never had I been so excited to be back in the states. As I cleared customs, the thought settled into my mind that we, as Americans, take to much for granted about this country.

Growing up, being an American was just who I was. There were dreams about what it would be like to travel to other places and in the fourth grade, my teacher, had given our class a project to work on over a weekend. That project was a question from the teacher. Simply, "If you could go anyplace on earth, where would you go?" she had ask. I chosen Brazil. Rio de Janeiro. Why I picked Rio most likely was because at the time growing up, it was a place that people talked about whether it was good or bad, but it was filed away in the old brain  for several decades.

As I cleared customs  a flashback to  a few days earlier during climb out from Rio's airport hit me on the way to Sao Paulo. I had looked down on the Harbor surrounded by two of; the most famous beaches in the world, Ipanema and Copacabana Beaches.The old file in my brain suddenly opened up and I remember thinking that I had been to my favorite place as it fell from view with wakes from boats in the harbor trailing them were visible and then like the beaches disappeared. The question that I recall also was myself asking silently, "where would you go next?".

As reality struck me, I was walking  away from customs, From what I had seen in Brazil from the stand point of freedom (Brazil at the time was under Military Control but the first President had  just been elected) being back on American soil for me was the greatest feeling I had ever experienced emotionally, even having experienced my beloved maternal grandfather's death and funeral not quite five years ago at the time.  Seeing soldiers on every level of a large shopping complex with their rifles slung over their shoulders was a wake up call. In less than a year, I was outside my hotel in Mexico City as the military police walked the perimeter of a park outside the Presidential Palace. So over the course of a year, became aware of just how spoiled we Americans had become and how much we took for granted about this country and what it stood for. It was a wake up call for sure, but calling it 'Woke' is such a misnomer on all fronts.

Those who think that they are 'woke' need to wake up! As the TxDot worker that I quote often had said to me, "People are asleep at the wheel." Amen, brother! There are just somethings in the use of our English language that need to be stopped on social media. It's destroying our culture and our country and don't even think about saying anything negative toward Donald Trump being in office. There are a few things that he does that even I do not like, but I have the respect for the office regardless of who is in the oval office but not disrespecting them for the office that they hold.