When I was little (third grade, to be exact; I wrote it down), my favorite movie was 1776, the absolutely fantabulous musical about signing the Declaration of Independence. Also, I like living in America. There are few places that I would consider living other than right here. This is my home, I admit that.
However, I don't know the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm seventeen, a senior in a public high school in a good suburban neighborhood, and yet it's true I don't know the Pledge of Allegiance. Does this make me unpatriotic?
In America, we're supposed to celebrate the Fourth of July with outdoor barbeques and parties, it's a day during which American children around the country should be waving around those cheap little flags and adults around the country should be proceeding to get drunk on good old American beer. Then the whole of America should be lining themselves up on sidewalks and in parks to watch the fireworks spectacles that pollute our skies. I missed the fireworks entirely last year, and there's a good chance that I wasn't wearing red, white, or blue. Does that make me unpatriotic?
The Star Spangled Banner was the very first song that I was taught how to play on the french horn in my middle school band class, and I played it with very few mistakes during every concert following. Yet the song bored me to death and ever time we played it all I would think was that I wanted to get it over with so that we could get on to the real exciting music. Does that make me unpatriotic?
Well to be honest, I feel a whole lot more patriotic than most of the country right now. Why? Because I look forward to my future.
Americans today are still slowly recovering from an economic meltdown, which I am reminded of every time I read Time magazine, or read a newspaper, or take notes in my Psychology class. Trust me, it's been drilled into my head so deep that I'll be thinking that we're still recovering from that same meltdown when I'm 80. I've got sympathy for my fellow Americans out there that are having a hard time, finding it near impossible to get by. I know the economy could take a decade or more to fix, and I know that our jobs crisis is a very real one. I know that our banks could still fail, that our economy could crash again, that my parents could lose their jobs and I could lose the standard of living to which I've become accustomed. It seems that I've grown up in an America where everyone's been telling me that it's my generation that's gonna suffer, that's gonna have to clean up the mess of the economy, the environment, the whole freakin' world. I've been given more than fair warning about the troubles that lie ahead, we all have.
But the thing is, I have in my possession one crucial feature that all you so-called patriotic Americans don't. I have hope. Why does everyone seem to forget that America has gone through the Great Depression? That it's survived countless wars, even those against its own people? We, as Americans, are stronger than we know. I know this, and I know that although things can always get worse, I also know that things can always get better. I know that I can persevere through whatever is thrown at me and come out better on the other side. Do you know what happens when you lose your job? You look for a new one. You learn to live below your current means. Americans should be resilient. I hope to be resilient, and I know I am I fighter. I hope for a brighter America and I am willing to work my way there. We have not lost the fight until we have lost everything. And we have not lost everything. Not by a long shot.
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