I hopped in my car to leave
work the other day and a song came on the oldies station that made me cry. It made me long for the world that I used to
know. It made me long for the security
of the familiar. The current world seems
so foreign to me. Luckily for me, the flashing
interstate message board hasn’t started to threaten crying drivers yet, (although
I’m sure that’s considered distracted driving) but I’ll be needing a chauffeur
if that ever becomes the case. What happened next would be explained as
coincidence by some, but I know better.
My best friend, Susan, instinctively knew that something was wrong and
sent me a text. It’s not like we talk
every day. Sadly, we go months sometimes
between conversations, but let me stub my toe and see if she doesn’t say, “ouch!”
Susan wants a time
machine. So do I. She says she wants to go back to 1975 so she
can get ready for the Bicentennial. I
laughed, but I understood what she meant.
While I struggled with an almost completely debilitating case of
depression that marred the first half of 1975 for me, the second half holds
nothing but blissful memories. (Does
that make me bipolar?) That was the
summer of “Philadelphia Freedom” by The Elton John Band. (Yes, you read that right!) Never mind that the song was written by two
British guys, America ate it up.
And yes, I own this single :)
We loved our American flag patches on our frayed cut
offs. We knew the words to the National
Anthem without cheating and that it was really hard not to yell out, “play ball!”
every time it ended. We knew that Francis
Scott Key wrote it, not about war, but about that one little spark of unrelenting
hope that this still new country would retain the freedom to figure things out
for itself. We said the pledge to the
flag, not as mind numbed robot children as some would paint it, but as
respectful citizens who had been taught to seek out and do the right thing. We had a flag at my house and we were very
serious as kids not to let it touch the ground when we lowered it before dusk. We learned to fold it in the official triangle
fold and placed it in its box each evening to keep it clean. It was just a flag. It was pieces of colored cloth that held no
magic. In and of itself it couldn’t save
us from anything. It was just a symbol. But symbols serve to remind us of what we strive to be more than what we
are. When we start to shun our symbols we
begin to reject the notion that we ever were, or are, or ever will be anything
of which to be proud.
Were things perfect in
my bliss filled version of 1975-76? Was
the government on the up and up with its citizens? Was the rest of the world behaving itself? Was it all homemade ice cream and fireworks,
mom and apple pie? I don’t believe in revisionist history and I won’t
sugar coat it. We were suffering the
effects of Vietnam, Watergate wiretapping, OPEC, an unemployment rate of 9.2%
and busing. Jimmy Hoffa went missing and
Patti Hearst was on the most wanted list for armed robbery. President Ford bailed out an almost bankrupt
New York City with a $2.3 billion dollar loan.
“The Son of Sam” pulled a gun and began terrorizing New York for the
next year. Three Gunmen abducted a
school bus with 26 children and the driver near Chowchilla, California. And on
and on and on.
Bad things were
happening then just as they are now. So
why were we such flag wavers back in that era and why are we trying so hard to
disassociate ourselves from any sort of patriotism now? I can only give you my personal opinion and
your own opinion may differ. America is
no longer that cute little baby of a country that it once was, so wide eyed and
innocent. America is now going through
that awkward ugly recalcitrant teenager phase, rejecting everything that is,
but unable to figure out what it wants to be.
I am beginning to believe that we have redefined “America” to mean THE GOVERNMENT
instead of “WE THE PEOPLE.” We have abandoned
patriotism because we have forgotten that it’s about us and not them. We are not pledging our allegiance to the “Patriot”
Act, or to the absurdities of a corrupt 2 party system. We pledge to be good neighbors and good
citizens and generally decent people.
Our pledge is to each other. We
are also pledging that we will not allow the government to cause WE THE PEOPLE to implode by using hot button issues to
divide us while they hide behind a curtain of deception cooking up the
nefarious—an idea they clearly stole from The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard had no power except that which was
given to him by his subjects.
When I was a kid they
told us that this country was the greatest nation on earth. As I grew older I realized that the same
propaganda was sold to school children in every country. Sometimes it’s hard to question things
without becoming cynical. In my old age
though, I have decided that it’s like picking a favorite football team or your
favorite character in a show. We’re just
rooting for our team/character here. It
doesn’t mean that we agree with all the players or even that we think the
coaches are calling the right plays. It
means that we accept each other—warts and all, because ultimately we want our
team to win.
