Living in New York City, I am reminded by the Statue of Liberty that the United States of America has always welcomed those yearning to breathe free and seek a better life.

New York is like the weirdest city in the United States, in a great way, and Los Angeles is probably more similar to most of America.

New York has more hermits than will be found in all the forests, mountains and deserts of the United States.

I think of New York as a puree and the rest of the United States as vegetable soup.

Many of America's and New York's sons and daughters are around the world fighting for the freedoms that the Statue of Liberty stands for.

The country was a dreamland; and perhaps it even reminded my wife's grandfather of the night he woke up drunk in his friend's house, beside his friend's wife, everything similar but new, different, better. The United States of America was like an eternity of those first disorientating seconds of not knowing and not wanting to.