The 5: Five More Reasons to Love America

This Week on the 5:  Five Things We Love About the U.S.A.

We know we can be tough on America but it’s not all white slides, oxys, and corruption.  There’s a lot to celebrate about being an American.  Last year on July Fourth, we posted Five Reasons to Love America. And even though we still hate ‘Hallmark Holidays’, that’s not going to stop us from celebrating.  Here are Five more things that we have as Americans that make us proud to be  living in the U.S.A.

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• John Deere.  Drive down almost any American highway and you will pass a John Deere dealership.  You can’t miss the signature logo and the bright shiny green and yellow painted tractors, lined up in a row.  To some, it’s just farm machinery– but to anyone who’s owned a Deere, there’s a love and a loyalty that goes way beyond owning mechanical equipment.  John Deere tractors are passed down from generation to generation, collected, and driven with pride.  Why?  In 1837, John Deere designed a better plow and the company has never stopped innovating.  Today, they are one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural equipment in the world, but still have a small town ethic and they’ve been listed as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies list for seven  years.  There’s something about a John Deere Tractor that makes you feel connected to the land.  Most of us can’t own a tractor or combine, but  if you have even a small yard– you can buy a mini Deere — a ride on mower, or golf cart.  Symbolic of the American farm, John Deere is without a doubt, a part of our heritage.
• Motown.  Talk about an American successful story. Berry Gordy, a high school dropout, failed boxer and struggling songwriter and producer, gets an $800 loan from his sister to start a record company. Gordy, along his right hand man, Smokey Robinson, hit the Detroit clubs to assemble a team of the top flight musicians and local talent shows to find young, raw talent. Within two years, Motown would have its first big seller with The Miracles ‘Shop Around’ and never look back. With assembly line precision, Motown would crank out classic and classic making household names out of The Miracles, The Marvelettes, Mary Wells, Martha & The Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Junior Walker & The All-Stars, The Jackson 5, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Rick James, Teena Marie, the list goes on and on. Motown also had an amazing in house staff of talent scouts, musicians, songwriters and producers including Suzanne de Passe, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Ashford & Simpson, Norman Whitfield, and the amazing in house band The Funk Brothers. The company’s motto was ‘The Sound Of Young America’ but it was ended up being the soundtrack of our lives, capturing the country’s high and lows, joy and pain. Motown was American made, but it affected the entire world.
• Diners.  Thank God for the American diner.  You can order anything  from a BLT to a Lobster.  Breakfast anytime.  Disco fries.  Tuna melts.  Open faced turkey.   Waitresses who don’t take shit. Neon.  Stainless steel.  It’s a place to sit at three am when you can’t sleep and you’re hungry.  It’s like mom opened a kitchen that anyone can go to, anytime.  American diners have been the subject of great art (like Hopper’s Nighthawks and Rockwell’s The Runaway) because they are art themselves, and also because they represent American culture in so many ways– crossing ethnic and economic boundaries.  And most of them are still owned and operated by single owners, families and partnerships.   Diners are an American Institution that haven’t changed much since the first ones started shipping out across the east in 1906, and they are a piece of small town America that you can find whether you are in the small towns, or in cities, and across American roadways everywhere.
• Levi’s.  Is there anything you wear more than your jeans?  Blue jeans as we know ’em were invented by Levi Strauss.  “Born” on May 20, 1873, they were  created to be a more rugged style of pants for laborers, using copper rivets to reinforce the denim.  Levi Strauss, arguably had a bigger impact on American style than any other designer or manufacturer.  Most people own at least five pair and if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you wear jeans almost every day.  Blue Jeans have, of course, evolved and changed over time.  You can find them in every price range, in all kinds of designs, from the skinny jean to the jegging, but it all started with Levi Strauss, and almost 150 years later, the American original– Levi’s– are still worn everywhere.
• Rodeo.  On July 4, 1892, Buffalo Bill Cody held what some believe to be the first American Rodeo in North Platte Nebraska to celebrate Independence Day. What could be more symbolic of American history than the cowboy showing off the skills that helped shape the American frontier?   Most rodeos take place out west, but you can find ongoing rodeos everywhere– even  New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and Florida.  And once a year, even New York City turns into a rodeo town with a massive professional bull riding event at Madison Square Garden. We love rodeo because every boy grew up wanting to be a cowboy or at least fantasizing about what it would have been like to be one of those early men out on the frontier, working the land.  Boots, cowboy hats, the ropes, the steer. There’ something about Americans where no matter how far we move away from our frontier past, there’s a part of us that still wants to go back.  A rodeo lets us get close up and see the cowboys in action.

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