My Father’s America
A Tribute Blog

                                                               CHAPTER ONE

                                                       IN THE BEGINNING . . .

America must have been a huge disappointment, indeed, to most of the early European explorers and adventurers.  These men came to the Indies of Admiral Colon for one purpose, and one purpose only - to get rich on the gold and silver and precious stones - not to mention the spices, which were literally as good as gold in their day.  Everyone knew that such treasures were to be had in abundance in the Indies, and the European soldiers of fortune meant to acquire them by whatever means should prove expedient.

But there were to be dozens of disastrous voyages before it finally dawned on the minds of some that these Indies of Admiral Colon might not be the Orient at all.  Apparently this was a New World, and entirely unknown continent, whose existence had not been suspected even by the wisest and most learned scientists back home.  And it had meanwhile become obvious, too, that in this New World there was a most disheartening lack of empires to conquer.

Yet, if their explorations in the Americas had proven to be so disappointing to many of the conquistadors, they had opened to them a world every bit as mysterious and exotic as anything the real Indies might have had to offer.  The men who risked their lives in the precarious Atlantic crossings of the 16th century, found waiting for them at the end of their voyage an immense continent of majestic size and stark extremes, a land of incredible natural beauty and wonders, of seemingly endless forests and stretches of utter desolation.  These early explorers encountered an America few white men would ever be able to experience.  They struggled through mountainous regions, their peaks covered by blankets of eternal snow; they suffered through broiling, forbidding desert valleys where no living creature could be imagined to exist; they crossed near-Arctic stretches of boreal forests and howling wilderness, and hacked their way through tropical jungles that overwhelmed them with pungent fragrances and introduced them to some of the deadliest creatures they had ever encountered.  Many an early expedition found itself wandering aimlessly across the endless flat prairies, without so much as a tree or a rock to serve as a landmark, only to stand in sudden awe at the rim of some plunging gorge or canyon.  They paddled across tranquil forest lakes and were driven helplessly down raging white-water rivers;  they relaxed on brilliant white beaches, lapped by gentle waves, and were wrecked against rocky ocean cliffs, eternally pounded by terrifying seas.  And nearly everywhere they struggled through dense virgin forests, from the pine barrens of the Eastern coast, through the immense woodlands north and south, to the majestic redwoods of the Far West.

 October 12^th, 1492.  

“Tierra!” cried  Rodrigo de Triana from his lookout on the forecastle of the caravel Pinta.

“Tierra! - Tierra !”  -  Land !

“Then, at two hours after midnight, the Pinta fired a cannon, my prearranged signal for the sighting of land.”  With that simple entry, the captain of the little fleet recorded in his logbook one of the most momentous events in human history.

“Tierra!” -  the word every crew member on the three little ships had been waiting to hear, and ninety pairs of eyes now strained desperately through the autumn night, hoping for a glimpse of the anticipated reward.

Land!  Could it be true?  Could it really be true, at long last?  After all these weeks of doubts and fears, of countless days and nights filled with apprehension, cursing the very moment they had agreed to join in this ludicrous adventure dreamed up by an eccentric foreigner - could it really be true - had they now reached the Orient after all?

And there it was, indeed.  Far off in the distance rose a shadowy coastline, barely visible at first, but as night gave way to a clear, bright Caribbean dawn, everyone could clearly see it.  Overwhelmed with relief and joy, the sailors fell to their knees, thanking their God for His immeasurable mercy in having delivered them safely to these shores.  They begged for forgiveness, too, from their Captain-General.  Never again would they doubt his word, they swore - not now, not when he had brought them to these marvelous lands, these legendary Indies, with all that fabulous wealth within easy reach.

One can well imagine the emotions of the captain, standing on the deck of the Santa Maria, looking out across the water towards the land that had at long last appeared during the night.  Out there, past the beaches, past the dim line of green, he no doubt already saw the Kingdom of the Great Khan, the fabled cities of Cathay and Cipango, the immense treasures of the Orient - all the wonders of the East, so tantalizingly described by Marco Polo some two hundred years earlier.  A lifetime of dreaming and scheming and planning, of being rejected, of being ridiculed by so many of Europe’s most influential men, had now paid off.  And he had done it - he, Don Cristobal Colon, Captain-General of Spain, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy of the Indies !

They had not, of course, come anywhere near the lands they were so confident of having found.  Japan, the Orient, the Indies of spices and gold, lay still half a world away, across a vast continent and a still vaster ocean. Christopher Columbus and most of the European adventurers who followed in the wake of his discovery, would spend their lives in futile attempts at finding so much as a trace of that ever-elusive Oriental splendor.  Most found neither wealth nor fame, and thousands paid with their very lives in the bargain.

Only a very few lucky - and very ruthless - men actually did realize their fondest expectations when they blundered across a few extraordinary civilizations in this exotic new land.  And the astounding treasures which flowed into Spain’s treasury after the conquests of the native empires of Mexico and Peru served only to encourage thousands more to risk it all in the search for still greater worlds to conquer.  For nearly a century after Columbus, the conquistadors and explorers of Spain, of France, of England, and adventurers of nearly every other European nation, all tramped across the islands and mainland of the New World, driven by a restless greed and by visions of ever-greater prizes.  Many generations would come and go before anyone realized that they had already found the grandest prize of them all.

Yet, despite countless stories of failures and disappointments, and of outright disasters, the lure of this New World soon acquired a life of its own.  Gradually its appeal grew and expanded, fed by the hopes of desperate people around the world - men, women and children who abandoned their families, their friends, and their homelands to find their destinies in the promise of a New World.  That promise soon acquired a name, one that has spelled magic ever since, becoming the envy of the world, a goal for the ambitious, a haven for the persecuted.  It has continued to shine down through the centuries as a beacon of hope for the world’s despairing populations.  It still lights the way today, never having ceased to cast its magic spell over uncounted millions.

               This, then, is the story of that promise called America.

This blog is a tribute to my father, Walter Lorenz, who passed away on November 4th, 2001. He came to the U.S. from Germany in the late 50’s, not knowing much English. His love of the U.S. came from his interraction as a child with the G.I.’s stationed in Germany after WWII and with the films of the Old West. He knew at an early age he was bound for America.

From my earliest memories, I remember my father’s love for the US and it’s history. There were always stacks of books piled on the dining room table. So many nights I slept to the sound of my father typing that I can still hear it. This wasn’t anything we brought up to him, it was just his thing. He was writing his “version” of history. My parents moved to Dallas in 1982 and managed to travel to so many influential historical U.S. spots.

His writings from the mid-70’s continued and he even transferred them to computer. I have over 3000 pages of American history, written by my father. I don’t know what to do with them. In 2003 I contacted some Literary Agents and one that responded said that he was surprised how professional they were but wasn’t sure what to do with them since my father wasn’t a historian of any kind and that he wasn’t offering anything controversial.

So I post it here, on a day-to-day format. Maybe someone will stumble upon it and have some interest in helping get this published. At the very least I hope others find it interesting and educational so as to pass on his love of this great country. But please, no unauthorized use of any of it.

Enjoy!