Earlier today, Tater Tot decided that he had to listen to the "Radio! Radio! Right NOW!" So I obliged. He wasn't keen on listening to NPR's Fresh Air, so I flipped around the dial and settled on a country music station. A couple of songs into the "activity," I heard the opening lyrics to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA."
I flinched momentarily...the song has been caught up in the war and its attending controversies and polarizing nastiness. Yech.
But then I decided to listen to it...and here's what came to mind: summers spent taking busloads of rural Texas youth (many of them the children of farmers and ranchers) to Washington where they met their Congressional reps (both Democrats and Republicans) in the early 1990s. From Dallas, we'd take several days to drive up across Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia. We played camp-style games and got to know the kids. We challenged each other's political points of view with good humor. Why not? We all wanted the same things...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (Ever noticed it's just the "pursuit"...there are no guarantees..) During the trip, we had nightly sing-a-longs complete with our own guitarist. We often closed with Greenwood's "God Bless the USA." (The one singing off-key? That was me.) We watched our young kids navigate the nation's capital. Watched them ooh and ahh at seeing the Declaration of Independence. Enjoyed the sunset by the Jefferson Memorial. We wept at the Vietnam Memorial. We wept when we parted.
Good times. Back when no one questioned any one else's patriotism. No one demanded candidates wear a flag pin for the cameras.
I want those days back.
I've become a thirty-something curmudgeon that cries at country music.
Ruh-roh.
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