JR Ewing can unite us all

After listening to so much, "Oh, the Left!" and "Oh, the Right!" you might be longing for a simpler time when the cardinal directions just loved each other. The federal government reopened this week much to the chagrin of news organizations that benefit from setting people aflame with partisan disagreement.

This week was also Veterans Day. The iconic Texas Correspondent podcast has been looking at how organizations here have been marking the holiday.

Volunteers in Plano set out 1,111 American flags with the story of a Texas veteran. The Medal of Honor Museum opened in Arlington this year, so they also set out banners with the name of each recipient from Texas along with a QR code telling their story.

Meantime, a retirement community in Dallas held a celebration of residents who served in the armed forces. A retired admiral was emcee and explained they would toast each branch of the service. The staff diligently made laps around the room, continuously topping off everyone's glass for all five toasts.

I explained to the manager I kind of wanted to move into a retirement community after seeing what their dinners are like. He asked which branch of the service I was in. An awkward silence followed.

But in that episode, you'll hear from a gentleman who, now 104, joined the Air Force toward the end of World War II when it was still the Army Air Corps. Bill Nickell says the country came together for a common cause.

"When World War II broke out, the whole nation was together. It was an all-out effort. Everybody contributed what they could, whether they were home doing a job that had to do with the military or whether they were in the military. But it was an all-out effort by everyone. Everyone was very patriotic and all together," he said.

This year, I learned part of a cemetery in Terrell is actually considered British territory. Twenty British Royal Air Force cadets died while training there during World War II. Earlier this year, volunteers in Terrell made rubbings of each tombstone to send to the UK marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day.

Great Britain's Counsel General from Houston and Canada's Counsel General in Dallas came for a ceremony marking Remembrance Day. Whether you call it Veterans Day or Remembrance Day, it marks the date World War I ended.

They read the names of each cadet who died and then went to the No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum for tea. This year, the head of the museum, Bill Huthmacher, went to Washington and received the British Empire Medal from King Charles III.

In this episode, he said the museum's mission is to preserve that history. He says cadets would spend their free time in the homes of families in Terrell, so they still hear from grandkids of both host families and British pilots who now keep in touch.

The reverend who led a prayer at the start of the ceremony also read letters from cadets where they said people in Terrell took the place of their families when they were in a new place and didn't know anyone.

"The story of hospitality and of the stranger becoming family, this story needs to be told year after year, heard time and time again, a story where citizens of different nations gave us a foretaste of what the coming kingdom of God will be like," he said.

A woman whose parents hosted a cadet said they still visit. In the late 1970s, she said they wanted to visit Southfork Ranch to see where that dastardly JR Ewing was up to his shenanigans. She says people in Terrell enjoyed the British accent; the cadets enjoyed the American accent.

"They watched Dallas in England, apparently," she says. "It was just something exciting for this little town. We'd take them to the drug store, and all these old cronies who went down there for breakfast every morning would tell about them flying their planes over their cattle and running the cattle everywhere."

In this time of division, maybe Veterans Day can help us see how much we still need each other. Otherwise, JR Ewing might ride a bull right into the town square.