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Vegetable Burgers?

Soon I shall be seventy-eight, if my luck holds.
It seems to me that the biggest changes during my lifetime
have had to do with cultural diversity, racial diversity.
I have my own measurement of diversity:  restaurants!

I cannot recall when first I ate something other than
potatoes and gravy, peas, and adventurous jello salad.
It is possible that seven or eight decades have dulled
what really was the case when I was young, but I do have
a distinct impression of meat and potatoes and gravy.

Culinary adventure, when I was young, was a Drive-In. 
It was rumored, in the State of Washington, that in California
people actually put lettuce, and tomatoes, and onions,
strange cheeses, and even avacados on their hamburgers.

Nobody ate Mexican food, or Thai food, or calamari.
In those days, there were no Mexicans, Thais, or squid.
Ours was a bit of an outlier family because Dad was a fisherman
who brought cod and halibut home from Alaska, but my
generation of Americans, once removed from immigration,
preferred meat and potatoes and gravy.  And plain hamburgers.

I exaggerate. We did have Chinese food. It came in
two cans, one taped to the top of the other: Chow Mein.
Dump the noodles onto a plate, and the heated chow on top!
Eat it with a fork. Maybe a glass of milk. Ad-ven-ture!

And here I am, seven decades later, part of a family that includes
White people, and Black people, and Thais, and Calamari. 

We might not be the most diverse nation on earth,
but we are close.  Some say Mongolia is diverse, in a surprising
way, and Brazil certainly is.  Whenever I get bilious thinking
about the insanity of Tea Baggers and Birthers, I think restaurants.
I take them as reminders that something wonderful is here.
A good part of the human community is here.  It is a good thing!

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