Mrs. Teabody Waves a Flag

Quiet hangs on these rooms and on the fully-leaved and lushy green trees that surround Chez Teabody this Fourth of July 2015. Cool breezes waft through the house's open windows and screened doorways this fourth morning in a row where low temperatures have provided the best of sleeping conditions. It rained in the night again making gardening  iffy and the forecast is for cloudy and overcast with a chance of picnics.

Mrs. Teabody woke up with these  memorized and sacrosanct words on her mind this Independence Day: "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, That among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Created equal. All men. Everybody. Everybody. It is no leap of faith to conclude that those born in China or Persia or Sweden or Africa are also created equal. Even if they have a different flag. They do have different flags.

Mrs. Teabody does not feel any scars for the experiences of her youthful indoctrination into being an American. Monday through Friday while school was in session through the fifties and early sixties, Mrs. Teabody stood next to her desk with her classmates and teacher acting as part of a well-mannered unit. Everyone placed right hand across left breast, the heart's seat, and pledged allegiance to the Stars and Stripes with its 13 stripes its 48 stars, then recited  in unison the prayer beginning "Our father" before  sitting down at desks to begin the day's work. Mrs. Teabody vaguely recalls Miss McGowan instructing her fourth grade class to add the two words, "under God" to the morning pledge. This huge change took about two days to feel comfortable. Classmates soon helped each other through this change. A flag hung in every classroom, still does to the best of Mrs. Teabody's knowledge. The flag changed dramatically when two new states were added to the United States during Mrs. Teabody's teen years.  By the end of Mrs. Teabody's high school years, the recitation of the morning prayer would come under strong criticism. Change is inevitable, but the flag would wave, different in appearance, same in meaning. Just this morning Mrs. Teabody learned that the pledge was first written by a socialist minister in 1892 and was intended for everyone in any country. http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm.

Indoctrination into becoming good Americans did not end with the pledge. Once every month or so the school would gather in a larger room where a center partition was removed and the music teacher sat behind a piano leading the school in a number of patriotic songs. Soon the room was bursting with the enthusiastic voices of children holding their paper bound songbooks and belting out "Oh, beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain" or maybe "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty" or "God bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above." Secular songs were also part of the repertory: "I'll be down to getcha in a taxi, Honey" as were Spirituals, "Swing low, sweet chariot", all of which stood in sharp contrast to the tunes being played on Victrolas or across the radio, "See the pyramids along the Nile". These assemblies inevitably ended with all children standing to sing the difficult "Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light . . ." Mrs. Teabody possessed a nice strong alto voice and she loved singing, still loves singing. She also has an almost uncanny ability  not only to remember song lyrics but to take them to heart.

"Long may our land be bright

With freedom's holy light"

"America, America, God shed his Grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea"

"O'er the land of the free

And the home of the brave."

Change is inevitable. The history of America has seen the flag, the flag of the United States  raised, burned, spat upon, amended, flown at half mast, draping coffins, folded , handled with care, reviled, loved, and changed. Mrs. Teabody believes in America, in Equal dignity in the eyes of the law, in the unalienable rights belonging to EVERY human being. When Mrs. Teabody  hangs up the only flag America needs, it will hold her whole history for good and bad but make no mistake about what she means when she flies it: love for what is bright and right, for brotherhood, for freedom and most importantly that all men -- all! -- are created equal. Happy Fourth!