In my neck of the woods, Spanish and many other languages are heard everywhere. All colors, all ancestries, you name it. Multiculturalism? I'm soaking in it.

I get my blood work done at the non-profit hospital where my wife works. A lot of people who come there don't speak English, at least as a first language, but it's always orderly and I've never had any problems.

I started out with grubby field work in Minnesota at 14, de-tasseling corn. Apparently they had us kids to do the jobs Mexicans wouldn't do. I would have given a lot to be one of those on the tractor. I later graduated to factory work, which was still grueling, but blessedly indoors. Until you hit a wet cornfield at sunrise, you have no frigging clue what real mosquitoes are all about.