On Liberty & Patriotism
I was blessed with the good fortune of childhood itinerancy. As our family moved, I grew to understand places and history to some extent. As I made my way through the Denver public school system, I learned both required and imagined details surrounding Alferd Packer, Wm. F. Cody, and the mysterious face on the bar room floor. These lessons were perfectly suited to boyhood, and the historical dates placed these fascinating events somwhere near my own time. After all, I owned and treasured currency minted as the West exploded. The world still held to a few living relics, precious and quickly fading into the two-dimensional pages of history.
The Great American Dream continued to call, and our family of eight vanished eastward. I reluctantly left the wild west appropriately in its grave, realizing probably for the first time that a cowboy is more than boots and buckle, just as ghost towns and abandoned mines are little more than headstones of dreams forgotten.
Geographically speaking, we landed on the banks of the appropriately named Trout Creek, a small stream that flows into the Schuylkill River, which then flows east into Philidelphia before turning sharply southward to meet the Delaware. On the road map, we were seperated from Valley Forge National Park by the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Red Coat Lane and Walker Road. I would guess we lived about a mile south of the park. I would walk there from time to time, but only when there was some sort of issue preventing travel by bicycle. I was living on the land that cradled the greatest country the world has ever seen. Our public school system understood that the outside world was a significant part of a quality education, so I finally learned the difference between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. I visited Gettysburg, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and New York City all within a relatively short period of time. Archealogical digs were not uncommon at Valley Forge, and I routinely saw rusty flintlocks and misshapen lead slugs either discharged or discarded by some early patriot. Though the west will universally fly our fifty-star official flag, it was not uncommon to see the Betsy Ross circular (thirteen stars) or even the Bennington flag hoisted proud. Even more impressive were the huge Culpepper, Navy Jack and other "rattlesnake" flags hung conspicuously in the King of Prussia mall, also a bike ride away. These were my favorite.
Navy Jack, Hoisted on September 11, 2002 aboard USS Thomas S. Gates
It takes a teacher to learn about Old Glory, but the fool that misunderstands the meaning behind the Navy Jack is likely to be the same fool who knowingly picks up a rattlesnake twice. For the most part, nature is honest and straightforward. For this and for beauty, I was regularly chest-deep in bushes, water or mud. I had already found myself in two circumstances involving rattlesnakes by the time I saw those flags. In each case, the rattlesnake was peaceful, wishing harm to none. When threatened, a warning follows, which if unheeded, will result in a fight to the death. This was apparently a very effective message for colonists fighting an oppressive monarchy. One of the rattlesnake flags states "Join or Die." Any questions?
Time is a slipknot. We all moved back west and I have been in Utah since then. Though I still enjoy reading about the western frontier, I have come to regognize it as a tributary, not unlike Trout Creek is to the Schuylkill. Both continue to flow, though my line has not been wet in those waters for twenty years. I am confident that those waters have no memory, though I grow wistful as I remember the trout, bluegill and turtles who were once my friends. Though I may (and do) change, what was true then continues to be true today.
As a child, I beheld a chair owned by George Washington. On the back of the chair a sun had been carved on an artificial horizon. It was said that Ben Franklin had often wondered if the carving depicted a rising or setting sun. During a constitutional convention, Ben Franklin stated that he finally knew that the carving depicted a rising sun. He was obviously referencing the birth of a young nation whose existence was forged in the furnace of war, and fueled by a vision of freedom.
It's hard for me to resist a satire forged in the furnace of sub-prime stupidity, but I'll leave it at that, stating only that there have been several times where the sun has rested on the horizon of this great nation. In nearly every case, solidarity and purpose brought Americans together as a unified body. We did very difficult things, and many of our best sacrificed life and future for an ideal others enjoy today. As an individual unit of an almost unimaginably large whole, I think I will do what is right. The day dawn is breaking.
The Great American Dream continued to call, and our family of eight vanished eastward. I reluctantly left the wild west appropriately in its grave, realizing probably for the first time that a cowboy is more than boots and buckle, just as ghost towns and abandoned mines are little more than headstones of dreams forgotten.
Geographically speaking, we landed on the banks of the appropriately named Trout Creek, a small stream that flows into the Schuylkill River, which then flows east into Philidelphia before turning sharply southward to meet the Delaware. On the road map, we were seperated from Valley Forge National Park by the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Red Coat Lane and Walker Road. I would guess we lived about a mile south of the park. I would walk there from time to time, but only when there was some sort of issue preventing travel by bicycle. I was living on the land that cradled the greatest country the world has ever seen. Our public school system understood that the outside world was a significant part of a quality education, so I finally learned the difference between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. I visited Gettysburg, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and New York City all within a relatively short period of time. Archealogical digs were not uncommon at Valley Forge, and I routinely saw rusty flintlocks and misshapen lead slugs either discharged or discarded by some early patriot. Though the west will universally fly our fifty-star official flag, it was not uncommon to see the Betsy Ross circular (thirteen stars) or even the Bennington flag hoisted proud. Even more impressive were the huge Culpepper, Navy Jack and other "rattlesnake" flags hung conspicuously in the King of Prussia mall, also a bike ride away. These were my favorite.
Navy Jack, Hoisted on September 11, 2002 aboard USS Thomas S. Gates
It takes a teacher to learn about Old Glory, but the fool that misunderstands the meaning behind the Navy Jack is likely to be the same fool who knowingly picks up a rattlesnake twice. For the most part, nature is honest and straightforward. For this and for beauty, I was regularly chest-deep in bushes, water or mud. I had already found myself in two circumstances involving rattlesnakes by the time I saw those flags. In each case, the rattlesnake was peaceful, wishing harm to none. When threatened, a warning follows, which if unheeded, will result in a fight to the death. This was apparently a very effective message for colonists fighting an oppressive monarchy. One of the rattlesnake flags states "Join or Die." Any questions?
Time is a slipknot. We all moved back west and I have been in Utah since then. Though I still enjoy reading about the western frontier, I have come to regognize it as a tributary, not unlike Trout Creek is to the Schuylkill. Both continue to flow, though my line has not been wet in those waters for twenty years. I am confident that those waters have no memory, though I grow wistful as I remember the trout, bluegill and turtles who were once my friends. Though I may (and do) change, what was true then continues to be true today.
As a child, I beheld a chair owned by George Washington. On the back of the chair a sun had been carved on an artificial horizon. It was said that Ben Franklin had often wondered if the carving depicted a rising or setting sun. During a constitutional convention, Ben Franklin stated that he finally knew that the carving depicted a rising sun. He was obviously referencing the birth of a young nation whose existence was forged in the furnace of war, and fueled by a vision of freedom.
It's hard for me to resist a satire forged in the furnace of sub-prime stupidity, but I'll leave it at that, stating only that there have been several times where the sun has rested on the horizon of this great nation. In nearly every case, solidarity and purpose brought Americans together as a unified body. We did very difficult things, and many of our best sacrificed life and future for an ideal others enjoy today. As an individual unit of an almost unimaginably large whole, I think I will do what is right. The day dawn is breaking.
