A few days ago, the family welcomed my sixteenth great grandchild. Sadly, the little guy faces difficult challenges. He was born with only one kidney, and his single kidney does not function with full efficiency. Still, I marvel at the opportunities he faces.
For more than a quarter century, I have served on the board of the Utah-Idaho Kidney Foundation. Progress in that field has been truly spectacular, thanks in part to generous support from the local foundation and others like it throughout the nation. I remember the first kidney transplant in Utah. It was a miracle. I knew a couple of the physicians who performed the surgery. Today, kidney transplant surgery is performed hundreds of times a day. The problem is not the technology, but the scarcity of donated organs.
Apparently, my great grandson does not need a kidney transplant, even if he were eligible for one this early in life. However, other miraculous technologies will serve him well as he experiences the treasure of childhood and rewards of maturity.
This great nation leads the world in medical breakthroughs. Kidney transplant technology was followed by transplants of other organs — heart, lungs, liver and more. No doubt you know someone enjoying life with a transplanted organ. And you surely know someone with an artificial hip, knee or other joint. But medical science is only one of many fields in which the United States leads the world, thanks in part to our outstanding institutions of higher education. They attract the best students from throughout the world, many of whom remain in America to share their wisdom and creativity.
It’s troubling, then, to hear so many folks talk about making America great “again” — as if we have lost some unnamed ingredient of national greatness. The only thing we have lost is belief in the nation among large groups of misinformed citizens. They seem to want to go back to those primitive days before heart bypass surgery, air conditioning, computers and communication-spreading satellites. (I also remember one of the first cross-country television broadcasts. The Tabernacle Choir performed near Mount Rushmore, and the TV signal was bounced off a giant Mylar balloon floating in the stratosphere so the event could be relayed across the county. The technology was certainly “great,” but it was a tiny preview of what was to come.)
Those who consider today’s America less than great seem to forget that the vast majority of today’s leaders, today’s workers and today’s creative citizens are the children of those who falsely “remember” better times. In other words, if something went wrong between yesterday and today, it’s because those who enjoyed yesterday’s “greatness” failed their own children and grandchildren. But nothing went wrong. America is still, I believe, the greatest nation on earth — the “envy of the world,” according to a recent issue of The Economist.
The MAGA crowd seems to think America was greater during times when we were more racist, more exclusionary, less educated, less committed to traditional American values. But the more we grow, the more we welcome the creativity, variety and energy from newcomers, the longer we will continue to be the “envy of the world.” Yesterday’s greatness was merely a preview of today’s greatness, and today’s greatness is the foundation of an even greater nation for our children, our grandchildren and our great grandchildren.
My new great grandson is a fortunate youngster, indeed — especially if his parents and grandparents believe in the promise of today’s America rather than some distorted memory of yesterday.
Don Gale.
Don Gale has observed and written about America’s greatness for more than three-quarters of a century.
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