I'm just a mutt. If you think about it, a great many of us are. When you fill out an application for almost anything these days, you're asked to "check" a box that describes your ancestry, i.e., Caucasian, Native American, etc. But how many of us does that actually describe?

For example, my father's ancestry was English. In fact, my grandfather grew up in Wales, although his parents were English. And, no, they are not the same, as my grandfather would quickly point out.

He came to this country "on the boat" as a young man, making my father first-generation American. My paternal grandmother was also English, although I do not know much about her family or when they immigrated to this country. My great-grandfather was a coal miner in Wales, and when the mines there were exhausted, he brought his family to this country and settled in Indiana, where strip mining for coal was still active. My father grew up in Terre Haute, Ind.

My mother's ancestry truly was first-generation American, or more specifically, first American. While her father's family was predominantly Irish, her mother's (my grandmother's) family was mostly what we now call Native American. My brothers and I used to joke about Mama going on the "warpath" when she was mad, and we were just grateful that she didn't actually have a tomahawk. However, the Bolo paddle seemed to serve just as well. The maternal side of her family came from the Upper Ohio Valley and was part of the nation known as the Miami. No, they were not Floridians.

Mama also grew up in the Midwest and moved, with my father, to Alabama, where two of my brothers and I were later born. I guess that made us Southerners, from a Midwestern background. I'm not sure how one would describe that on a job application. Maybe that's why potential employers don't ask for that kind of information. It would just get too confusing.

Many of us in this country are multicultural "mutts." That's okay; I'm proud of my heritage. From my mother, I got my height (despite the Irish blood, I am definitely not leprechaun size) and what I consider to be a very funny looking nose. From my father's family, I got my fair skin and square jaw. From the two of them, I learned a deep appreciation and love for God and country.

I learned to eat fried okra and cornbread dressing in school lunches in Alabama. They were not served in my Midwestern parents' home. In fact, my father used to refer to okra as "milkweed pod." He just didn't know what he was missing until later in life when he couldn't get enough of it. And I finally convinced my mother to use cornbread in her dressing. Proof that we can all learn from each other regardless of our heritage or our age.

My objective here is not to bore you with a portion of my family history but to point out what, to me, is one of the truly amazing things about our country. We have so many cultures and backgrounds to learn from and appreciate. It isn't all about one culture or one group of people.

We need to be receptive to new ideas and different points of view.

T&D Correspondent Peggie Walter can be reached by e-mail at pbwred@tds.net. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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