I learned who and what I am. I am an American, a citizen, and this is much more than a mere accident of birth. It is a principle, an ideal, a dream to be nurtured and pursued. Up until two weeks ago, when James Hodgkinson walked onto a softball field with the intent to kill, I would have described America as a lineal spectrum, a line upon which there is a middle, then a left and a right of that middle, then an extreme left and right of that. I was wrong. America is many, many lines laid over one another in a radial fashion like spokes, their centers intersecting, forming the hub of a wheel that roles through history … making history. The spokes of this wheel which is America are constructed of our religions, of our favorite sports teams, of our social/economic positions, of our taste in music, of our ethnicities, of our political affiliations, of our ages, of so many things. It is where these things intersect that the core of America exists. This is the point, the epicenter from which America derives its power to courageously and wondrously roll forward, leading the world through the history of both yesterday and the history yet to be written. I, like many of us, perhaps most of us, do not always find myself on the hub of this wheel but somewhere along the length of its spokes, and this not a bad thing. It could be argued this is the very thing that makes America strong; the very thing that makes America great. The danger comes from being too far out on the spokes of this wheel … too far out to see those, our fellow Americans, our fellow citizens on the other side of the center, then, eventually, too far out to see the center at all … weakening us, fragmenting us out of existence. Those who know me know I do not identify with either the Republican or the Democratic parties. n truth, much less the Republican Party. I am somewhere out on the spokes, but not so far out I can’t see the other side. James Hodgkinson lived too far out on the spokes. He could no longer see the center. To me, when he began shooting, he wasn’t shooting at Republican congressmen … he was shooting at MY congressmen … because I am an American. This is all I have learned today.

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James Wares is retired and resides in Marshalltown. He can be reached at whatjimhaslearnedtoday@yahoo.com