Twice in my lifetime

It's been announced - Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize!

For those curious, the other U.S. Presidents to win were Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Woodrow Wilson (1919) and Jimmy Carter (2002). And, of course, perhaps America's most treasured award winner - Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964.

Today, I think of my paternal great-grandfather bringing his wife and three young children here from Northern Ireland fleeing poverty and starvation. And I think of my maternal great-grandfather bringing his family here from Germany, just in time to escape the Holocaust.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I am greatly humbled.