New Salem

We are visiting Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site with Klara’s class. I’ve gone on a lot of these field trips with my mother’s class back in the USSR, and, yes, cultural differences are very real. The capacity for calmness and attention among American fourth-graders is vastly superior. Everybody is polite, kind, and helpful. People who can focus and control themselves like this at 10 will do great things.

This is an extraordinary country, people. Let’s not piss it away.