I didn't ever want to be Miss America, but I am able to say freely... I miss America, because for the most part I missed America.

Lady Liberty would be MORTIFIED if she could visually see and comprehend what has happened to this Nation she once so proudly represented.

This day and age is NOT the America, for which non-Americans hoped and dreamed. This is a land of blame, name calling, ADOLESCENT behavior called politics. Those lacking empathy, or what it means to actually take responsibility for ones choices or ask another for forgiveness. It is the regression of America's political system, via the Internet.

Responsibility is not an empty word one can sweep under the rug to live ones life as a "dissimulator or pretender", where one can remarkably justify ones imagination to the way of "perfection" (you either get it or you don't.), or blame another like I dubbed Bill Clinton back in the day as "Teflon". He made sure NOT a thing stuck to him.

People can be very demeaning, and typically it's the ones closest to us. Tell me where that makes ANY sense. The ones closest to us DESERVE our best. Instead, when one gets "caught".... one "blames" it on the other. I never quite understood blaming another, people usually do it in a haphazard way "thinking" they've cleansed themselves, without realizing they may have heaped one too many burdens on another human being.

In the early 1990's I began to get a personal glimpse of this political absurdity of via one white man, as to how the mentality of this world was warping. I was employed ultimately by Quaker's in Pennsylvania. Living in a suburb of Chicago, my manager was some whack job about saving coins and not paper money due to the magnetic strip, and hoarding guns. He was abusive and threatening on the corporate level and not to be the last either. I believe there are those who attain a "title with authority" making the shallow depths of their arrogance giddy with hunger for power and "thinking" they're in control. Eventually, they lose what they "thought" they had.

Sounds like Barry HUSSEIN Obama. He's shifted gears as I stated previously, that he would stop blaming President Bush and move on to attack the GOP. A man we don't know what he is or what motives are now behind his new plan of attack. He's not a man of his word. Barry HUSSEIN's first two years were spent race-baiting and he is trying.... and VERY SLOWLY to appear as though he has some sort of compassion toward the people in Joplin, MO. BUT, his life of globally screwing up pomp and circumstance with the Queen... and wasting our money flying around to "appear" to be something he isn't... is more important than human beings who are lost, have lost loved ones, and lost the basic necessities of life.

Barry HUSSEIN Obama has done this ONE thing repeatedly. He leaves people in economic FEAR. Barry HUSSEIN Obama is Anti-American.

That's not exactly my point here, although it is...

I call any sort of abuse of power... terrorizing, when it instills terror or fear within another human being. Terrorizing or seeming to "lead" by inducing fear upon another is UN-American. It's really Anti-American. That is NOT why anyone ever fought or died for OUR Freedom. WE the People CANNOT let OUR United States of America to be left in the hands of a destroyer, to bring US... the USA down to the level of a Third World Country.

Times have changed, and I wouldn't think I'm that old, yet when I was a young girl I thought my mother was old at my age. By looking at me who would know I learned how to crochet and quilt as young girl.? I mean quilt on a wooden frame, hanging by ropes, in a basement of a house, wearing a thimble on my finger, using a needle and thread, with a window fan. And as you moved along, you roll the quilt on one side of the frame. Who knew I spent my young summer days with older women crocheting, and listening to them talk swinging on the porch as widows.? I was taught to respect older people as in the age of grand parents, and one was like my grandmother.

She's been gone for over 20 years. I didn't shed a tear. I kept living my life and only wished at the time I had one of the quilts. For the next 20 something years I kept moving along, and hoping one day... I could make a better life for my mother. My mother came here from South Korea, hoping for a better opportunity in the United States of America, and instinctively dreaded it from the time she got on the plane and got air sick. I've known it my entire life, if at age 5 counts.

My memories are with photos, and they are all I have. We weren't fortunate enough to have movie cameras, so I cherish the few photos I have. I have memories of unconventional breakfasts to warm my tummy when it was cold, and that was my mother's love. She was trying to keep me from getting sick, too. Food was and still is a sign of wealth to her, and she made sure we were fed well.

She knew what it was like to have plenty, and to lose it all in a Third World Country that had very little at the time. My mother also had to learn what it was like to WANT to eat.... with little to none. She had to ration a bowl of rice for her food. My mother remembers living through wars. Even the end of World War II, when the Russians removed the Japanese, who controlled Korea at that time. Then lived like a second class citizen because she was a female. She has fond memories of eating apples as a child, and on a couple of occasions. Sadly, she watched sisters die due to no medical treatment, then her young father, whom she speaks very highly of with so much love. The tradition then was to carry the casket down the street, and that's her last memory of her beloved dad.

She lived in Korea during the Korean War, where many fought in the Military, and others gave their lives. She recalls hearing the bombs explode, and all they knew was to move farther away, but could only go so far. She wasn't her mother's favorite because she wasn't a male, nor the first born male, yet she left to work (and she still says it with pride to this day) as a switchboard operator on an American Military Base. She always sent money to her mother to help take care of her, despite all things, and one day her mother died. Her mother really did love her, my mom told me and it was difficult for her. I was grateful to listen and learn.

The Military Base is where my mom got a taste of America. She got a BIT of chocolate, a BITE of pizza, maybe some ice cream, and got to laugh at American men. She enjoyed laughing because it wasn't condoned.

My mother to this day, after working hard... and it's reeking havoc on her body now... is STILL proud to be in America. SHE made sacrifices. Living here for over 50 years, she went back to Korea twice, and learned of the death of her brothers via the telephone. I always felt her pain and heartache. To tell you how much I admire my mother for all she's done for me and others.... knowing all I do, could fill a book. I've met not one soul like her.

Earlier I stated wanted to make a better life for my mother. I guess in that respect I'm not the typical "daughter" wanting to provide for her "mother", and I wasn't able to do it. That was the ultimate goal in my life.

She always hoped for a better life for me. Thus, Doris Day and Que Sera Sera.

I can still hear her sing it. I am my mother's daughter and she represents the epitome of an American. She loves this Nation, because she knows WHY she is here, and WHAT it took to get to the Land of the Free... the Home of the Brave.

This is the day we remember the fallen. Their lives were not lost in vain, when life is kept in perspective, with gratitude.

Truly,

Kathy Pledger

The PhotogPhenom

Editor & Co-founder