Land that I love

Last night, I attended an Ohio Northern University Alumni Dinner at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in D.C. There were about 80 alums in attendence and the only people I knew were KB and Marty Cosgrove, which was perfectly fine by me. The food was great, the wine was flowing, and we all enjoyed ourselves.

Afterwards, the three of us headed home via the Metro. As we approached the Metro platform to wait for our train, we heard a loud voice shouting from the opposite side of the platform. It was a black man "preaching" about race and the upcoming election. We couldn't make out a lot of what he was saying, but were able to catch a few key words: white people...enslaved the black man...Obama...hate for the white man. Marty said he wished he had a sermon prepared that he could preach back at the guy. I said, "Well, we could sing something." KB liked the idea as well, so we spontaneously started singing God Bless America.

We were a little shy at first, but by the time we got a few lines into it and found people looking our way with smiles of approval, we really let 'er rip. An older gentleman sitting on a nearby bench took his hat off and placed it on the ground at our feet.

By the time we finished the song, the preacher's train had come and gone, but the people standing around us applauded our performance. As the gentleman picked up his hat, he thanked us and said, "That was just great!"