Confusion in the Ranks

I am past 64 now, so remember even longer ago than the title of my blog suggests. It's too much trouble to change the title, so I leave it, with apologies to anyone that that ruffles.

I have also lived outside the United States of America for nearly half that life, so when I come home, it's been fun finding the things have have changed. One of those brought up memories of grammar school (when it was still called that because they actually taught grammar back then), when students would stand up at the beginning of the school day, put their hands over their hearts, recite the Pledge of Allegience and then sing the National Anthem.

I was invited to a women's club meeting just yesterday after my yoga class got cancelled when nobody showed up and the woman on the recombinant bike next to my treadmill started to leave and offered to pay for my lunch (I find free food irresistible) if I wanted to go. Off I went in my yoga outfit covered with a long green fleece sweater from Canada. No one gave me a second look, they were too busy having fun, bless their hearts.

I was only slightly jarred when they stood up to start the meeting and then all turned to the front. I thought it was for a prayer, but it was to recite the Pledge. I cannot recall the last time I was anywhere that did this. Like an old racehorse - or dog - I promptly placed my right hand over my heart and recited along, stumbling only over "indivisible" - not a word you hear often these days.

The ladies then swung into a rousing rendition of...God Bless America. Not the National Anthem, which is a challenge to sing even in grammar school, I admit, but still it's the country's official song. What got me was that some of the ladies kept their hands over their hearts while singing, as if the song is official, like the Pledge, or a stand in for the Anthem. I wasn't sure what to do, not knowing what changes had been made since the last time I lived in the States. I was pretty sure I would have heard if the Star Spangled Banner had been changed, and there seemed no reason to honor God Bless America with a hand pledge, so I sang with my hand hovering in the vicinity of my heart, not wanting to offend anyone.

Today my brother forwarded an email attachment about the Pledge. Coming so quickly on top of my reintruduction to it yesterday, I was curious. Seems the version I first learned in school did not contain the currently-controversial phrase "under God," as that was officially added in 1954. That was the fourth and final (to date) change to the 122-year-old text. Baptist minister Francis Bellamy composed it for a youth magazine to promote patriotic passions in the populace in 1892, focusing on the youth in the schools. He was - and I was frankly taken aback at this - a Christian socialist. I'm pretty sure there are no Baptists today who would cotton to being called a Christian socialist.

Mr. Bellamy wanted something quick that promoted allegience to America, and he choose his words carefully, including "republic" as more accurate than country or nation and leaving out equality or fraternity because those would not apply to blacks or women in 1892. So it seems the Pledge is one of the first examples of the power of advertising - schools that recited it could buy flags at cost and were urged to post flags to which the Pledge could be recited each morning, inspiring patriotism. Children even saluted it with a Nazi-style arm raise, which was changed to the hand-over-heart for the kids and everybody in 1942.

There's more, but I am impressed all this has happened over this small, originally 15-second pledge to the flag of our country, and the republic for which it stands (this was created for grammar schools, after all). Whether to redact the last change of "one nation 'under God,' ' to return to "one nation indivisible" - which referred to the Revolution and Civil Wars which jumpstarted the country - is under current consideration.

That the United States of America is the only county, other than the Phillipines, which copied us, to have and at times required and expected its populace, particularly its children, to daily pledge their allegience to its flag and the nation behind it, is something I never thought about.

I have now. I remember when it meant something. When the sight of the flag, Old Glory, send shivers through me, when I looked for it among others and was thrilled when I saw it. Apparently, 45 of the states allow school students time for the Pledge (and anthem, I suppose) in the mornings; individual school boards and schools determine what they will do during that time. I have no figures on how many still recite the Pledge. I'm not sure how thrilled our young citizens are when they see the Star Spangled Banner waving.

As they say, we've been good and we've been bad. We've been great and we've been dismal. We've set standards at the highest order and brought them down, too. We are, like everything, a work in progress. But there are so many things the world can thank us for: not the least of which is an attempt at equality and fraternity, goals so elusive only a few countries have even tried to follow our example. And so long may it wave and long may students learn  to recognize both it and the great Republic for which it stands, with pride.