BrownSuga’s Sweet Spot: Happy Birthday America

Last evening, while doing some work, my husband and I had the television on, not really watching it. I can’t recall if it was 60 Minutes or what, but some news show began telling statistics about Americans. The show claimed that:

1. There are Americans who don’t know what the stars and stripes represent on the American Flag.
2. There are Americans who don’t know the name of our current Vice President.

And for me the most shocking was…

3. There are Americans who don’t know the words to the National Anthem.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not the most patriotic person in this country. There are things I should know about this country that I don’t. And on the eve of this Nation’s birthday, I decided as an American it is my civic duty to share these little pieces of America’s history.

There are 50 stars on the American flag, they represent the 50 states that make up our country, *clears throat* The United States of America (and no Washington D.C. is not a state). There are 13 stripes on the flag as well. They represent the 13 original colonies. And our current Vice President is Dick “I’m a good shot” Cheney.

I would like to sing you all the words to the National Anthem, but unfortunately I can’t do that. I did, however, sing the whole song perfectly for my husband and he was impressed *smiles*. I don’t know the different reasons why people know all the words to it, but at my elementary school we were required to learn it and to be able to sing it on the spot if any teacher or administrator should ask (no Mr. Clark was not my principal). So here are the words to the United States of America’s National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, written by Francis Scott Key in 1814. But if you don’t know the words then you probably didn’t realize we only use the first verse as the anthem, I suppose the rest was too boring to sing…

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that Star - Spangled Banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

So tomorrow serenade a fellow American…sing it loud….sing it proud. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!