Category: Daily Life in the USA

Here and There, Then and Now

After returning from 40 years in India, Hong Kong, and Cambodia, I have found many parts of daily life in the US quite a contrast to similar life experiences abroad. I will be listing some of the samples of life Here and There and also Then and Now.

One difference I notice most often is the time of sunset in Louisville compared to sunset in Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh’s latitude is 11º, near the equator, and in the tropics the sun sets early and quickly, without much dusk. Usually Phnom Penh was dark by 7:00 PM.

Louisville is latitude 38º and here sunset is after 9:00 PM and darkness about 9:45 PM or later. I keep getting surprised when I look out the window at night and realize it’s after 9:00 o’clock and the sun is still up!

Once again…

When I got on my bike yesterday, I found the left brake lever just flopping loosely. A hinge pin was missing on the caliper. Today I took the bike to the shop that sold it. They looked for a replacement part in their junk box but didn’t have one and will have to order it. To give me back my front brake, the tech put a bolt in the in hole and tightened it with a set screw and that will hold till they get the proper part.

America and God?

O God who loves us, on this Independence Day, we pause to thank You for the blessings of liberty, peace, and the pursuit of happiness. We honor the sacrifices of those who secure our freedoms and protect our lives, and we ask that You watch over them.

Guide our nation’s leaders with wisdom and compassion. Heal our divisions, and help us to build a society rooted in justice, unity, and mutual respect for all people. May we use our freedom to serve one another and strive for the common good.

Juneteenth

The challenge continues

Some excerpts from an article by Kelly Brown Douglas, Stephanie Spellers, and Winnie Varghese in Religious News Service (June 18, 2026):

At the time of Juneteenth in 1865, “Neither the Emancipation Proclamation nor General Order No. 3 [announcing slaves were free] was yet true. Both ushered in a new reality of “unfreedom.” Both expressed the enduring tension within the American freedom experiment itself: the gap between our proclaimed ideals and our lived realities.”

In our experience today, “The story of freedom is unfinished in a nation that pledges “liberty and justice for all,” while it systematically advances policies, practices and ideologies that diminish human dignity.” 

“Here is what we know: Freedom is not an achievement to be declared and celebrated once and for all. The work of freedom is perpetually unfinished because the forces that threaten it continually take new forms, as we see today in restrictions on voting rights, challenges to citizenship and the denial of due process to immigrants.”

Pegasus Wired

Louisville is famous as the home of the Kentucky Derby, one of the big annual events in US sports. Years ago the city made available to businesses full-size horse figures which a company was to decorate and then display outside their business location. It was a creative idea and the horses still proudly prance around the city. The Eye Care Institute where I receive treatment has this horse and yesterday I noticed that since the last time I was there, a solar power panel has been added to the back of the horse. Why it was added wasn’t immediately obvious but then I noticed several dark dots on the horse’s left flank and elsewhere. I’m guessing they must be lights of some sort, but adding an obtrusive solar panel seems to negate any aesthetic attraction the lights might have. I’ll have to go back there in the dark to see if my presumption is correct–and if the lights are a positive or negative.

The American way….

Today I was at Costco to get some items I need for my trip this week to Cambodia and I was struck by how polite and respectful most Americans are. People greeted me, waved me in line ahead of them, apologized for brushing my arm, paused their cart to let me go first. I am not used to that. Cambodian people are some of the most courteous people in the world but culturally they don’t express it the way we do here. There is seldom acknowledgement of the other person, no eye contact, no greeting spoken, no disarming smiles. They are wonderful people but they just don’t interact the way we do. Coming back to OUR way has been a really positive experience for me and an opportunity for reflection on who we are and how we meet each other.

My first spring back home

Cambodia only has two seasons, hot and wet and hot and dry. Different trees have fruits and flowers at different times but everything is always green, leaves don’t fall off trees like in parts of the U.S.

It’s my first spring time in the U.S. in 40 years and I’m really enjoying it! The cold weather seems to have finally (almost) disappeared and everything is in bloom!