July 8, 2008 -- First off, a rare burst of sincerity. GMT salutes the men and women who for the last 232 years, not to mention the decades leading up to the original Independence Day, have made the requisite sacrifices to give us the greatest country in world history by a margin roughly as wide as Tiger Woods to golf's second-ranked player du jour.

Seriously, you know you're blessed when you grow up in a place where you fear virtually nothing other than perhaps -- okay, definitely -- the ridicule of the girls in my eighth grade homeroom who for some reason couldn't see past my 260 pounds and size 8 melon to notice what a great boyfriend I would've made. (Looking back I realize now that they literally couldn't see past me.)

We are, by and extra large, a fat and happy nation. There are real problems to be sure, not the least of which are gas prices rivaling the Texas Rangers' collective ERA (both still under five at press time). Injustice on every level should be vigorously challenged and rooted out, but many of our dilemmas are actually borne out of blessing. Take my family's health plan. (Please!) About the only thing it covers is my insurance agent's annual European vacation. The drug card is a Joker. Their idea of an office visit co-pay is having my wife and me go halfsies. Taking a page from AFLAC's famous duck, our insurance company chose another aquatic creature as its mascot -- a sponge.

On the other hand, I don't recall universal wellness care making the founding fathers' final cut of inalienable rights. (Then again, we covered that in eighth grade when I was concentrating primarily on impressing the damsels of Neely's Bend Junior High by sucking in my gut to look thinner, like maybe 255.) Obviously, a lot of my fellow Americans have it worse than my family; many have it better. The point is, insurance is a luxury. If we had no coverage whatsoever (instead of merely a plan that only seems like no coverage), we could still walk into any emergency room in the U.S. and receive treatment that would likely be superior to what the vast majority of the rest of the planet's population could get by paying cash. That doesn't mean our health care system shouldn't be significantly overhauled; it does mean that a lot of people would love to have my "problems."

So, I spent the holiday weekend concurrently in two states: Texas and one of gratitude for this great nation. If it weren't for America, there'd be no Venus and Serena. One day after we celebrated our nation's independence from Mother England, Venus and Serena spent Saturday morning on that side of the Atlantic putting on the matriarch of all fireworks displays in a classic Wimbledon final. (Nadal over Federer the next day wasn't bad either.)

Like the world's best one-legged golfer, the Williams sisters didn't come from royalty; just from parents who loved them, believed in them, and told them what others may think of their skin tone is merely a pigment of their imaginations. For years, we figured Earl Woods and Richard Williams were either cocky, crazy, or some twisted combination of the two because of the seemingly preposterous predictions they'd make about their kids. I'm beginning to think we were the arrogant ones for assuming a pair of working-class black men weren't capable of concocting American dreams so outlandish and certainly not in such vivid color.

If it weren't for America, there'd be no Anthony Kim. The 23-year-old from SoCal is the progeny of parents who emigrated separately from SoKo, hooked up in L.A., and together created both a successful herb business and a single sprout. Anthony, by winning the AT&T National at Congressional Sunday, became the first U.S.-born player under the age of 25 to win twice in a season since another southern California phenom with Asian roots.

Now, Kim is poised to join a bumper crop of young Americans who might mercifully breathe new life into the biennial rerun known as the Ryder Cup, ostensibly a "competition" between the U.S. and Europe that lately has been about as evenly matched as Hot Dog vs. Kobayashi. For those who play under the Stars and Stripes, theirs has been primarily Old Glory: the U.S. hasn't hoisted the Cup this millennium and has just three wins since 1985. Maybe the fact that Kim is one of 17 players currently of the top 22 available with no Ryder Cup experience isn't such a bad thing. It's like the football team that returns all 11 players from an offense that didn't score a touchdown last year. Yes, they have experience; they know how to lose.

Of course, had the U.S. lost its original skirmish with England nearly two and a half centuries ago there wouldn't even be a Ryder Cup. There'd have been no one on the other end of the olive branch extended by Samuel Ryder, whose business wasn't herbs but seeds. He literally gave golfers from the U.S. and his native England, who'd for years talked about having a series of matches, something to play for when in 1927 he donated the Cup that still bears his name in hopes of engendering goodwill between the two sides. It's mostly worked, though I've noticed the lion's share of goodwill is found on the side that's winning handily.

America isn't perfect primarily because it's comprised of a populace that isn't either. But as we exercise our right to rail against the establishment for all the things that could be better, let's at least take the occasional timeout to acknowledge how fortunate we are to still be going steady after all these years. As opposed to my old coed classmates whose vision was impaired no matter how much I sucked in, we should see clearly past our nation's imperfections: America's only 232.

Grant Boone is a husband, father, broadcaster, and journalist born in Tennessee and living in Texas. During his nearly 20 years in sports journalism, he's been heard on tape delay in pizza joints half-filled with fully-drunk beer league softball teams and around the world covering major sporting events for ESPN, Turner Sports, Golf Channel, and CBS Radio. To read past installments of Grant Me This, click here http://www.pga.com/news/grantmethis/. You can contact Grant at mailto:pgagrant@hotmail.com