Today I’m on the road, heading across the country on Interstate 70. We’re spending the Thanksgiving holiday with my brother and his family in Kansas City, Missouri. As much as I like being at home for Thanksgiving and cooking the feast myself, I really do enjoy traveling this time of year. We’ve had great past Thanksgivings with family, and also some very memorable ones in New York and Orlando. And our house sitter is taking care of the animals, so we’re off without a care!
But as I’m about to head across that great highway and writing this up, using this tool we call the internet, I’m reminded of the things we must do together as a nation. No single person, or even large corporations, can accomplish and maintain such grand and vital projects. And I’ll add as a reminder: both were started as defense department projects, as was the Global Positioning Satellite system (GPS), which I’ll also use on the trip.
There are many more opportunities before us, grand projects that will benefit us all. The conquest of space. The maintenance of our planet. Healthcare for all. All are big projects with benefits too numerous to contemplate. And these projects and others require that we do them together. I sometimes wonder if we can accomplish big things, like the interstate highways and the internet with out them having to be wrapped in the cloak of fear and doubt. Even our greatest technological achievement, our manned trips to the moon, were done because of our fears, not our aspirations.
But this is the time of year for hopes and plans. Perhaps these worthy projects are just down the road.
