2007 Soap Box Archives

Land That I Love

After the millions of miles I've traveled across this United States of America in the last seventy years, after performing in all fifty states and just about every town of any size, after seeing the oceans, the mountains,
the deserts, metropolis and village, interstate and cowpath, scrub oak and redwoods, skyscraper and swamp, you¹d think that I'd get a little jaded about seeing the same sights over and over.

But the reverse is true. The sights, the sounds, the smells of America still holds me in a passionate fascination.

As I write this column I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah looking across miles and miles of a flat semi-green landscape melting into rugged purple peaks in the far distance.

Yesterday it was the snow covered Rocky Mountains standing guard over the incredibly energetic city of Denver and the day before Albuquerque.

Last week I was in the bayou country of south Louisiana where the people speak with a colorful accent and serve you crawfish and dirty rice with a sincere smile and a friendly word.

Tomorrow I'll be in Phoenix where thriving metropolis and rank desert come together, where you can stand at the edge of town and see nothing but sagebrush and cactus as far as your eye can reach.

In August we'll be going to Alaska, truly the last frontier of pristine wilderness where the big fish fill the streams and the grizzly bear is king.

I've seen the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi in Minnesota, the breaks of the Columbia in Washington State, San Francisco Bay, New York Harbor, the great lakes and little rivers, all America, allbeautiful in their own
way.

I've seen the sun rise in the Atlantic and set in the Pacific and God willing, I will see it many more times be thankful for the blessing.

How could you ever tire of watching the absolute precision of the changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery, a tall ship sailing outbound to who knows where under the Golden Gate Bridge, the magnificent eruption of Old Faithful at Yellowstone or the million star extravaganza on a cold Colorado night.

Could you ever see too many elk grazing in the Arizona highlands or too many northbound flights of geese in the skies over South Carolina or smell too much honeysuckle or magnolia or fresh made tortillas or see too many
Hawaiian rainbows or bald eagles in the wild?

I can't, and if I live to be a hundred years old these eyes will never tire of the beauty, the magnificence, the wonder of America, the land I love.

Pray for our troops

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

June 4, 2007