To a True American on the 4th of July

On this 4th of July, my thoughts are with Michael Koretzky, my maternal grandfather.  I apologize if people have seen this picture beore, but I have yet to unpack my external drives and scanner, else I would try to find a different one.

But maybe this is appropriate for this holiday.  My grandfather was born in an area that is now part of the Ukraine.  Ethnically, he was Polish, but grew up in a town under the old Russian Tsrarist regie.  Russian was the official language, with Ukrainian and Yiddish being the local vernacular (both of which my grandfather spoke).  He told me stories that as a child, certain farm laborers in the community were actually underground priests, and under the cover of night, he and the other Polish children would be taken to a barn to learn their Catholicism, as well as Polish language and culture.

1914 brought WWI, the Great War.  Grandpa fought with the Tsarist Army until 1917, when his county saw the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism.  History such as this led him to board a ship in Le Havre, France in 1921 and make his way to America, coming through Ellis Island in New York.

America!  Grandpa loved this country.  If my memory serves me, he became a citizen in the late 30's, early 40's and never stopped his adoption of his country.  As a young adult, I remember once going to his basement workshop at our house in the Bronx to look for a hammer and nails.  I found a notebook open on the bench - and written over and over were the words, "My name is Michael Koretzky.  I am a United States citizen."  Grandpa spoke with a thick accent but he worked each day to improve his English.

Let's go back to July 20, 1969.  I was eight years old.  That night, we all sat around my grandparents' television set, mesmerized by what was about to happen on the surface of the moon.  Neil Armstrong stopped out of the lunar module.  Grandpa was staring intensively at the set.  The last step was made and the famous line said:  "This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  At that moment, my grandfather jumped up to yell, "We beat the, we beat those bastard Bolsheviks, long live the USA!!!"  I had a childhood epiphany then: in this man's lifetime, he has seen the invention of the car and the airplane, and now here he sits in a house he bought, sitting on his furniture, after fleeing what was his homeland, to adopt this new one and now watch his fellow countryman walk on the moon.

For moments like that . . . be grateful to be an American citizen.

Happy Independence Day.