TALES OF FREEDOM FROM AROUND THE WORLD; AND IN RUSSIA: A REMINDER OF HOW GRATEFUL WE SHOULD BE HERE

Jon Keltie and family moved to Cape Girardeau from Bryan, Texas, one year ago. He is employed at Cotner Electric.

This past year and a half has helped me to gain a better understanding of what freedom can be, and how this term "freedom" can mean so many different things to so many different people.

About a year and half ago I responded to an article in the Houston Chronicle referring to a man in Florida who had started a correspondence exchange program between people in the now failed Soviet Union and people here in America.

I was matched with a 26-year-old assembly line worker in Camapa, Russia. A city of just over 1 and a half million people in central Russia. His name is Aleksei Serbinu. His correspondences and general accounts of how his life has changed during this period of reform in Russia has opened my eyes to just how fortunate we are here in the land of inalienable rights, freedom, and justice for all.

We often complain about being out of touch and poorly represented in our system of government. Yet Aleksei seems totally confused at the prospect of having any representation, or freedom to choose. As he has written to me I have begun to understand that the freedoms we take for granted are often beyond the simple comprehension of many peoples around the world.

Our freedoms have provided us with a land of plenty. And the rights to expand upon those freedoms. Boundless opportunities to work and live as we please, where we please and with the opportunities through hard work to improve upon our circumstances.

This is simply out of the question in modern day Russia, which is just now attempting to travel the same path to freedom our forefathers traveled for us so long ago.

How grateful we should be that 216 years ago this country was created on the basic idea of freedom, liberty, and justice for all.