What is an American anyway?

He yells for the government to balance the budget and then takes the last dime he has to make the down payment on his car.

He whips the enemy nations and then gives them the shirt off his back.

He yells for speed laws that will stop fast driving, and then won't buy a car if it won't make 100 miles an hour.

An American gets scared to death if we vote a billion dollars for education - but he's cool as a cucumber when he finds out we're spending three billion dollars a year for smoking tobacco.

He gripes about the high prices of the things he has to buy but gripes still more about the low prices of the things he has to sell.

He knows the line-up of every baseball team in the American and National Leagues - and doesn't know half the words in "The Star-Spangled Banner."

An American will get mad at his wife for not running their home with the efficiency of a hotel, and then he'll get mad at the hotel for not operating like a home.

He'll spend half a day looking for vitamin pills to make him live longer - then drive 90 miles an hour on slick pavement to make up for the time he lost.

An American is a man who will fall out with his wife over her cooking and then go on a fishing trip and swallow half-fried potatoes, burnt fish, and gritty creek-water coffee made in a rusty gallon bucket - and think it is good.

An American will work hard on a farm so he can move into town where he can make more money so he can move back to the farm.

When an American is in his office he talks about baseball, football or fishing - when he is out at the games or on the creek bank, he talks about fishing.

He is the only fellow in the world who will pay 50 cents to park his car while he eats a 25-cent sandwich.

An American likes to cuss his government but gets fighting mad if a foreigner does it.

We're the country that has more food to eat than any other country in the world and more diets to keep us from eating it.

We're the most ambitious people on earth, and we run from morning until night trying to keep our earning power up with our yearning power.

We're supposed to be the most civilized Christian nation on earth, but we still can't deliver payrolls without an armored car.

In America, we have more experts on marriage than any other country in the world - and more divorces.

But we're still pretty nice folks. Calling a person "a real American" is the best compliment we can pay him. Most of the world is itching for what we have - but they'll never have it until they start scratching for it the way we did.

(Originally published in the Marysville, Missouri Record Herald, this piece was passed on to the Register by the New England Weekly Press Association, and first reprinted in the Register in October 1959.)

- Mary Brewer