I’m proud to be an American this day and each and every day of the year. I’m reminded of our many travels overseas and visiting many of the Asian countries. While living overseas, we were treated like royalty all the time. We couldn’t step out of our apartment without hearing hello repeated by all the little children. Imagine large groups of children repeating (hello, hello, hello, hello, hello) over and over till you were on to the next group who would start it over and over again. Oh the children there were so beautiful to me and they always brought many smiles to our faces. I can still hear those sweet little hello’s echo in my mind.

A side note about children in Korea. Children played in the alleys and were sprinkled everywhere as the earth was their playground. Very small children 2 and 3 year olds would be with their siblings playing even into the evening hours. So when driving thru the alleys and roads we would do the little toot, toots with the cars to move the children off to the side of the road so that you could squeeze by them. One thing about Korea is that there was no fear of child abduction, robbery, mobs or any of the sorts, so the feeling of security was top notch.

Bob and I traveled much of Korea while we lived there and we were stopped quite often by people wanting to take our picture. Many times teenagers and adults alike would ask if they could get their pictures taken with us. One day while I was strolling alone in the open market I had an older woman stop in front of me. She turned around and faced me and bowed to me repeatedly. I have no idea who she thought I was as I’m only human like her and anyone else on the face of the earth. It’s not who we were but where we were from that made us so special. One evening while Bobby and I were walking home from a nice dinner, we had a woman follow us to our home. She got on the elevator and followed us all the way up to the top floor as we lived in the company (Lockheed’s) penthouse (overlooking a beautiful river). We didn’t know we were being followed but when she did not choose a different floor we knew something didn’t seem right. She then started talking to us and wanted to come in. We welcomed her into our home and it was like she was in Little America. She was so happy to see us and she longed to live in America. She’s been here (America) once before and stayed for several years but her husband was unable to get his visa so she returned back to Korea. I could tell stories upon stories but the bottom line is that we are a blessed people and I never want to take our freedoms for granted. America is our Home Sweet Home and what a joy to call America my HOME!