Things I Love About America

With the Fourth of July just having passed, it is time for a more light-hearted look at things to love about America. So here is a partial list of things I love about America in no particular order…

Start with Food:

1. Coca-Cola: Not Diet Coke or Coke Zero, no cans, no plastic bottles. Ice cold in the iconic glass bottle. A real Dr. Pepper is a close second.
2. Arnold Palmers: Half iced tea, half lemonade and legendary full refreshment. And specifically, Arizona Iced Tea Arnold Palmers. The company’s co-founder Don Vultaggio has refused to jack up his prices and pass those costs onto his customers: “What I’m hearing lately is a lot of companies reporting their earnings are up because they have raised the price. I don’t think people need a price increase right now.”
3. Twizzlers: Strawberry, black or chocolate Twizzlers, Cherry Bites or Nibs. Send them all my way.
4. Small-batch candy: Gardner’s Peanut Butter Meltaways, Boyer’s Mallo Cups and Idaho Candy Company’s Idaho Spuds come to mind. 
5. Family-run Italian restaurants and markets: These are passionate labors of love and it shows. Luigi’s (Dubois), Lena’s Café (Altoona), The MVR (Youngstown, Ohio), Franco’s (Williamsport), DeNunzio’s (Jeannette), Santinoceto’s (Clearfield), Dnic’s (Philadelphia), Jimmy and Nino Sunseri’s (Pittsburgh), Catalano’s (Scranton) Pepe’s Pizza (New Haven, Connecticut), Arcaro & Genell (Old Forge), Revello’s and pretty much any pizza anywhere in Old Forge….I could go on for days.  
6. The Big Mac: Invented in Western PA and an icon around the world. Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.
7. Burger wars: People love to debate burgers. From Shake Shack, to Five Guys, In N Out, Whattaburger, Culver’s, The Red Rabbit and a long list of others. Argue all you want, I’ll be over in the corner eating a great burger in whichever place I find myself.
8. Cheesesteaks: You think Roe v. Wade was controversial? Go tell someone from Philly where to get the best cheesesteaks. Pat’s, Geno’s, Jim’s, Joe’s and Dalessandro’s are just the start of the conversation in Philly. And if you’re Down the Shore don’t sleep on The White House in Atlantic City. They’re all incredible… so again I’ll let others argue while I stuff my face.
9. Great barbecue: It is pulled pork, ribs, brisket, chicken, smoked sausage. It is coleslaw on your sandwich. It is dry rub, South Carolina mustard sauce, Alabama white sauce, vinegar based, tomato-based and everything in between. And every region thinks they make it best. It is Fargo’s in Bryan, Texas, Fox Brothers in Atlanta, Maurice’s Piggy Park in Columbia, South Carolina, Dreamland in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Andy Nelson’s in Baltimore, Ace Biscuit & BBQ in Charlottesville, Virginia, Sweet Lucy’s in Philly and so many more.  
10. Buffalo wing sauce: It’s ain’t just for wings anymore.
11. Chili dogs: James Taylor sang a song called “Chili Dog”…and he didn’t even mention the half-smoke from Ben’s Chili Bowl in D.C.
12. Stone crabs and key lime pie at Joe’s, oysters and chowdah at Union Oyster House in Boston, Tex-Mex at Mi Tierra in San Antonio or at Chuy’s original location in Austin.
13. Eating dockside at the Lobster House in Cape May, New Jersey or at Mitch’s Seafood in San Diego.
14. Ice cream: Thomas Jefferson may have brought this idea back from France, but it has become truly American. And we grew up just blocks from Penn State’s Creamery.
15. Righteous grub in humble locales: Mickie’s Dairy Bar in Madison, Wisconsin, Handy’s Lunch in Burlington Vermont, The Fishin’ Pier Grille in Avalon, New Jersey, Croaker’s in Richmond, Virginia, El Charro in Tucson, Arizona and Halal Guys food truck in Manhattan. 

Sports:

1. College Football: The most uniquely American of sports and specifically a Saturday night Penn State White Out. 
2. The Rose Bowl Stadium: January 1, sunshine, real grass, the Big Ten versus the Pac 12 a true piece of Americana…for now. 
3. Fenway Park and the Boston Red Sox: Thank God the Sox never built a new stadium. This is baseball as God almighty intended it to be. Played on real grass in a ballpark with no roof. Hats off also to the Cubs and Wrigley Field. No matter how old we may be, a Friday afternoon game feels like you’re skipping school ala Ferris Bueller. 
4. PNC Park and Camden Yards: Camden Yards started the retro-park movement and PNC perfected it.
5. Rivalries: Red Sox-Yankees, Duke-UNC, Ohio State-Michigan, Army-Navy…the hate is real and perfectly acceptable for these and so many more bitter rivalries.
6. Sports heroes: Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Roger Staubach, Franco Harris, Walter Payton, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Lindsey Vonn, Serena Williams.
7. Downhill skiing: From the small hometown hill of Tussey Mountain to the front four at Stowe, A-Basin’s powder to the back bowls of Vail and KT-22 at Squaw Valley. There is an adrenaline rush of pushing yourself to the edge where mistakes can have big consequences. Wear your helmet.
8. The Daytona 500: Three across, two feet apart at 200+ miles per hours in impossibly high-banked turns. Talk about consequences.
9. The Old Boston Garden: No air conditioning, dead spots in the floor and a whole lot of banners in the rafters.
10. My first baseball mitt, a Joe DiMaggio model that still sits in my office.
11. Black Nikes with a white swoosh.
12. 409 and .406 

Music, Culture and History:

1. Lyle Lovett: Few artists can match his range of styles, his songwriting and his reverence and respect for those who came before him.
2. American music: Born of blues roots in the Deep South, American popular music exploded and expanded to a range of styles. From rock to rap to jazz to country to hip hop, blues, folk, pop and everything in between, the soundtrack of America has been one of our greatest exports. 
3. The “Hamilton” soundtrack.
4. Accents: From Texas to the Mid-South and Deep South to the Midwest, New England and even Pittsburgh, as a writer I love picking up the subtleties in speech and mannerisms that have outlasted so much of the national homogenization of our culture. And yes there is a Pittsburgh accent. Having spent many a summer at my grandparents in Latrobe, that accent is familiar and calls to mind a long-ago childhood.
5. The $2 bill. It has faded from use but it features Thomas Jefferson and artwork of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the back.
6. Step back in time: Independence Hall, Charleston, South Carolina, The Freedom Trail in Boston…
7. Battlefields: Gettysburg, Antietam, Valley Forge…. 
8. Famous Homes: Mount Vernon, Monticello, The White House and, yes, Graceland.
9. The Cyclone at Coney Island.
10. Unique college campuses: Penn State, UVA, Indiana, Vermont, Ole Miss, Wisconsin, UNC, Texas…
11. Animal House: Perfectly politically incorrect.

And the Views…

1. Sunrise over the Fishin’ Pier in Avalon, New Jersey.
2. Sunset over the Pacific in Santa Monica.
3. The view of San Francisco from Sausalito as day turns to dusk and dusk turns to night.
4. Pittsburgh from Mount Washington.
5. Mount Rainier on a clear day.
6. Lake Tahoe’s blue waters in a bowl of snow-capped mountain peaks.
7. D.C. from the eternal flame of JFK’s grave or the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery.
8. Flying into O’Hare at night, the lighted grid of Chicago as far as the eye can see.
9. The morning view across Jackson Square from an outdoor table at Café Du Monde in New Orleans.
10. Morning hot chocolate and donut in Bryant Park in NYC.  
11. Cardinals, Blue Jays, squirrels and even a bear raiding my bird feeder.
12. Dawn’s first rays over Mount Nittany.

No matter how far we roam our hearts come back to home, a home where the things we love are familiar and warm our souls.