2026-07-02
6 分钟The New York Times.
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My fellow Americans on this.
The 250th anniversary of our great republic, I think we're unlikely to have a unifying address from any politician.
So I thought I'd get a little dressed up and offer one myself.
A few years ago, I exercised one of my most important birthrights as an American.
I drove with my wife and kids across the country.
Connecticut to Seattle, 3,000 miles in a crowded minivan.
One of our stops was Kalispell, Montana, a small city just outside Glacier National Park.
And one of the places we thought about staying was the Kalispell Grand Hotel.
And after the trip was over, a little while later,
I was in my dad's house looking at a collection of family artifacts from my grandmother's side of the family.
And to my surprise, there was a picture of the Kalispell Grand Hotel.
My great-great-grandfather built it.
His name was Blair Bryce Gilliland, and he built all kinds of things around Kalispell.
We had driven past monuments to my own ancestors without even realizing it.
And the reason we didn't realize it was that after B.B.
Gilliland helped build Kalispell, his son didn't stay there.
He left and started over in Southern California.
And then my own father, his grandson, married a woman who had come west from New England,