ST CHARLES, Illinois – This has been a voyage of discoveries.
Not least of which has been the mere fact that we were able to pull this off: 22 consecutive days with a minimum of 18 hours work a day. We traveled and conducted interviews all day before working late into the night -- only to start all over again the next day.
I am lucky that everyone who accompanied me on this trip from start to finish – Sharon Reich, Lucy Nicholson, Carlos Barria and Brian Snyder – are all true professionals willing to put in whatever time it takes to get the job done, not to mention lovely people.
But the biggest discovery has been one I have been able to dwell upon only since returning home. When you’re on the road talking, writing, driving and planning the next stop, there is little time for genuine reflection.
That discovery was that everywhere we went people were in the process of working out where America goes from here after two illusory booms – the dotcom bubble and the housing bubble – and where will the jobs come from to fuel real, sustainable growth.
This is not a debate I see much of at the national level, but connecting with Americans along the some 6,000 miles of our journey renewed my faith in this country’s greatest capacity: the ability to reinvent itself.
The greatest asset that will help America achieve that is its people. In most of the places we visited the people we met were earnestly looking to the future or were reconnecting with their communities because the housing crisis had affected them or their neighbors.
After decades of rampant, credit-fueled consumption, people like Denny Robertson in Bella Vista, Arkansas, who has had his salary cut, are reexamining the way they spend and live their lives.
Or people Mike McGreevy, Brandon Barry and Edwin Andino, three young men in Buffalo, New York, who are working for below-poverty wages rehabbing homes because they are tired of hearing people complain about how bad things were in the city and decided to do something about it themselves.
Or Megan Smith, 21, a student in Providence, Rhode Island, speaking out on behalf of the state’s growing number of homeless people.
All of them good people. We met good people wherever we went, doing the best they can to make a difference where they are.
Then at night while I worked on blogs in my hotel room I would turn the television to one of the cable news channel. The America they talked about was full of Democrats and Republicans, ideology pitted against ideology. Froth and vitriol.
I did not see their America on the ground, I just saw good people doing the best they can, together. The contrast between the angry men on television and good people on the ground could not have been more striking. And I found myself wondering just how much of a disservice the media and this country’s two parties do the American people by dividing them up into “us” and “them.”
Because just as this country’s greatest strength is its ability to reinvent itself, it first needs to acknowledge what is broken and what can be done to fix it. Therein lies the real route to recovery.
Political divisions, however, appear to stand in the way of that process on a national level.
This is not just a foreign observer talking. Time and again throughout this trip I talked to Americans making a difference on a local level who told me they had lost faith in Washington or even state governments because ideology had trumped common sense.
People like Jack Hakim, the Republican mayor of Bullhead City, Arizona, who was angry that the state’s Republican leaders were cutting revenue to towns like his for ideological reasons.
Or Jay Williams, the mayor of Youngstown, who ran against the city’s Democrat political machine because he wanted to affect real change. A registered Democrat, he had to run as an independent with Republican funding to beat local entrenched interests.
Again, both of them good people.
Most heartening for me on this trip was seeing people stepping up and doing something for their communities, realizing perhaps that while the government should be there to help, it cannot do everything.
People like Pastor Jonathan Watson in Bella Vista, Arkansas, have reached that conclusion. He said he had to overcome his fear of using his church to raise funds in order to launch a book and CD to raise money for healthcare and other services for the elderly in his community.
Watson said Reuters coming to his church was God’s will. Our arrival confirmed for him that he was doing the right thing. And while I didn’t see it that way, nor take up his offer of spiritual advice at the end of his Sunday service, I like to think we parted as friends.
To Watson, I was part of his conversation with God. To me, his raising money for the elderly was simply just a good thing. For what it's worth, perhaps one of my greatest discoveries on this trip was my faith in good people like Pastor Watson and other Americans, of any religion or none.
Click here for the Route to Recovery slideshow.
Pictures: From top to bottom
People in a truck leave after shopping at Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas, November 8, 2009. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Paul McDouglad sits on a table at the Urban Ministry soup kitchen in Charlotte, North Carolina November 15, 2009. Since 1979, the Urban Ministry is the largest and oldest soup kitchen in Charlotte serving more than 300 meals a day. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
A U.S. flag decal is stuck to the window in a door to the Harrington Hall homeless shelter in Cranston, Rhode Island November 18, 2009. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
A woman walks down the street in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood of Buffalo, New York November 19, 2009. Buffalo has 15,000 vacant lots from houses that have been demolished, amounting to 3200 acres of vacant land. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Steve Patronas stands at the Organized Seafood Association of Alabama office in Bayou La Batre, Alabama November 10, 2009. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Pastor Charles Hudson cries as he looks at the damage to the Madison School, where Hudson worked with the anti-violence organization Bondage Busters, in Youngstown, Ohio November 21, 2009. Youngstown has 4,500 vacant structures in a city of about 75,000 people, and about 22,000 vacant parcels of land. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Denny Robertson (R) sits with his daughter Heidi, 6, in the living room of their home in Bella Vista, Arkansas, November 7, 2009. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Senior Pastor Rev. Jonathan Watson (R) blesses parishioners during a Sunday service at the Bella Vista Assembly of God church in Bella Vista, Arkansas, November 8, 2009. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
A pelican flies near a fisherman in Pensacola, Florida November 11, 2009. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
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