Living out in the outer reaches of civilization here in Fort Pierce reminds me of the heady days when I lived in Port Orchard, Washington, a small hamlet of just 7,000 citizens across from Seattle but a world away in terms of customs. It reminded me of Mayberry, right down to the community events where everyone, every time stood up and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.<\/p>\n
Before moving to Port Orchard, I had last recited the Pledge in elementary school. I hear they don’t do that any longer, but we used to faithfully stand up after the bell rang, place our hand over our heart, turn 45 degrees to look up at the small flag above the blackboard and dutifully recite the Pledge.<\/p>\n
In small town USA, you were expected to recite the Pledge. Perhaps we’d all be better off if we still did. I still remember one guy I worked with many years ago who, at noon, would stand up and sing the Star Spangled Banner at work… every day. He really stood out in the crowd. And I hear he’s much better now that they’ve stabilized his medication.<\/p>\n
As I stood there in these meetings, and there were many of them, I couldn’t help but laugh a bit. There we all were – grown ups – still reciting the Pledge in the short phrases we learned as pea brained six-year-olds. As you well know, we all recite it like this:<\/p>\n
I pledge allegiance, Of course, it’s not grammatically correct. The phrasing’s all wrong. The worst part is we all know it’s wrong. And to think this was taught to us by teachers who then turned around and rapped our knuckles because we didn’t know what a dangling participle was (I still don’t know).<\/p>\n You’d think as adults, we’d change it back to the way it was written. We no longer have to fear that Sister Mary Margaret will wield her yardstick as we once again substitute “invisible” for “indivisible”. It’s very Stepford Wives that we all learned the Pledge in exactly the same way, whether you went to a small one room schoolhouse in the country or a big inner city elementary school.<\/p>\n But how should it really sound? I believe it really goes like this — (read the entire line out loud before pausing . . . ready class?)<\/p>\n I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, Sound’s a little different, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n It’s really a good thing that our teachers only taught the Pledge this way, and not the rest of our lessons.<\/p>\n One can only wonder, We’d all be If you’ve ever heard him speak, he talks a lot like he’s saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I’m sure that somewhere in the great beyond, Sister Mary Margaret is having a field day with how she taught little Bob Dole proper phrasing in first grade.<\/p>\n As for me, I think I’ll try recite it the way it is really written. As a writer, I think I have an obligation to stick with the way the author wrote it. After all, I don’t rewrite other epics of the language. I don’t add new phrasing to Hemingway, Dickens or even Robert Frost. I say it as it was written, as the author intended.<\/p>\n And I think I will say it really loud. So that others can follow my lead and re-engineer the Pledge in America. Sure, it will sound sloppy for a bit, but I will overcome this with the all the unbridled enthusiasm of a born and bread American writer. I will say it loud and with all the conviction I have.<\/p>\n But before I do, I need to check to see if Sister Mary Margaret is still with us. She never did like me much and with my luck, she’ll be in the back row of the local chamber meeting, ready to a give me a good rap on the knuckles for old time’s sake.<\/p>\n Out here, — Robb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Living out in the outer reaches of civilization here in Fort Pierce reminds me of the heady days when I lived in Port Orchard, Washington, a small hamlet of just 7,000 citizens across from Seattle but a world away in terms of customs. It reminded me of Mayberry, right down to the community events where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2076,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions\/2076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTo the flag,
\nOf the United States of America.
\nAnd to the Republic,
\nFor which it stands,
\nOne nation
\nUnder God,
\nIndivisible,
\nWith liberty
\nAnd justice
\nFor all.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nAnd to the Republic for which it stands.
\nOne nation under God,
\nIndivisible,
\nwith liberty and justice for all<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nWhat life would be like,
\nIf we all wrote
\nand spoke,
\nIn the same way that we
\nRecite the Pledge
\nOf Allegiance.<\/p>\n
\nA lot like,
\nBob Dole.<\/p>\n
\n
\nThere’s a lot wrong
\nWith America today.
\nBob Dole,
\nwill fix it,
\nMy word,
\nIs my bond.
\nDrugs?
\nJust don’t do it!<\/em><\/p>\n
\nOn the Treasure,
\nCoast, Writing
\nPledge of the
\nAllegiance style today,<\/p>\n