It was probably somebody who had had his share of lumps, culminating in a distant decision to cut off his roadhouse with a new highway. He was undaunted nonetheless. He believed in the system, and he believed in an abstraction called country. In a fractioning age and society, we could use more of that spirit. In fact, we desperately need it.
Humans are at least in part a social species.
In the absence of a larger group with which to identify, we tend to fall back to identifying ourselves with subgroups, whether they be urban street gangs, ethnic groups, or economic class. It is less divisive to invest a sense of identity and altruism in one's country, to be proud of it and concerned about its well being. At the local level, the parallel is civic pride. We need a global system to perform the same role for societies that those concepts do for individuals, but it will be a long time coming. Meanwhile, we need the nation.