I play the bassoon in the Bel Air Community Band and usually we play a concert for the Independence Day celebration just before the fireworks at Bel Air High School — which is the descendent of the school attended by John Wilkes Booth, since this is where he was born and raised. However, a new high school is almost finished and the Bel Air High School I attended is slated for demolition. So for the last couple of years, and this year, due to the construction, the fireworks have been moved to another location but we haven’t played because the alternate location has no room for us or our audience.
When the band plays before the fireworks, we always finish with John Phillip Sousa’s march, “Stars and Stripes Forever.” The most difficult thing about playing it for many of us, because it is such a beautiful and stirring march, and we love our country so, is not to burst into tears as we play. I do usually finish with tears running down my cheeks, and I see other band members wiping away tears, too, when we’ve finished playing.
Our country is under a well-planned, slow-motion attack from within the like of which we’ve never seen before and can hardly comprehend due to the scale of destruction bearing down on us. We are fighting for the life of America as a democratic republic empowered by capitalism. Please vow on this Independence Day to keep the faith and do the work necessary to restore our Congress and the presidency to people who will be true stewards of liberty, capitalism and the American Dream. This fight is too big now for anyone to be excused from service.
When my niece sang the National Anthem at a minor league baseball game on Tuesday it was all I could do not to burst into tears. She hit every note nearly perfect. But it’s the assault on the US that’s killing me.
Vivian Louise,
I just added your blog to my blogroll and I hope you will add mine to yours as “A Conservative Lesbian, Cynthia Yockey.”
Funny you should mention minor league baseball — my father and I went to see our local minor league baseball team last night and it was a fireworks night to celebrate Independence Day. My father is 93 and this was the safest way to get him to see a fireworks show — we were under a roof instead of being broiled and cool beverages and rest rooms were nearby. Plus — we won! I wrote this post because the final barrage of the fireworks was set to “Stars and Stripes Forever” and I just sobbed as that stirring music played and the multi-colored fireworks flashed and sparkled in the sky as beautiful symbols of the deadly fire of the weapons we must use in the never-ending fight for our freedom.
I don’t dare go watch fireworks anywhere, if hasn’t rained in far too long here and the kids always shoot stuff off close. So I stay home praying that the house doesn’t burn down.
Worse, the dogs always go into spasms of frenzied barking trying to save us from it all. You just won’t believe how much racket two Pugs and one German Shepherd can make with a background of firecrackers, bottle rockets and the odd salvo of heavier munitions.
So, in honor of the day we shall watch Yankee Doodle Dandy. As a Texican I’m not much for Yankees normally, I mean they’re all right until they move down here and then start telling us we’re doing things wrong and “this is how we did it back home”. But, once a year I am a Yankee Doodle Dandy, I am that Yankee Doodle boy!
As a real live nephew of my Uncle Sam I do believe there is more ruin in this great Nation than even Obambi and the Democrat Congress can supply to bring her down. Yes, it will be rough but this is nothing like 1862. Things looked grim then, by July 4th, 1863 it was all over but another two years of wasted bloodletting. My great great grandfather fought at Shiloh and Vicksberg and then took the walking tour through Georgia with Sherman. This? This is a walk in the park.
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FYI
This song is called the Disaster March. It is traditional code signalling a life-threatening emergency. This helps theatre personnel to handle events and organize the audience’s exit without panic. Circus bands never play it under any other circumstances. One example of its use was at the Hartford Circus Fire in July 1944.
Winki
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