THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 14, 1996 TAG: 9606130162
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: IN PASSING
SOURCE: DIANE GUYER
LENGTH: 42 lines
When I was 3 and 4 and 5, my father would hoist me up on granite shoulders for a lofty view of the parade. Mysteriously, the drums and my heart would fuse as the marching band approached. Men would hold their hats over their hearts when the flag passed by, but I had no hat to muffle the sound of the pound-pound-pounding in my chest, and I sometimes feared that I might burst.
Steely, invisible chunks of World War II lay imbedded in my father's mind like jagged shards of shrapnel, still fresh and painful - ragged reminders of the bloody price paid for that flag and the ideals it embodied. Everyone seemed similarly afflicted - except, of course, for all the young shoulder riders, who only knew that their fathers considered the striped and starry pennant to be beautiful and somehow important. Flag burners had not yet been born in those days of innocence - those unsullied days when ``The Star Spangled Banner'' still evoked shameless tears in the eyes of every patriot.
``There's our flag!'' my father would shout. ``Isn't it a beauty?'' I would compare the large flag to the miniature version that I clutched in my hand, but my father couldn't see me nodding in agreement as I waved my little flag proudly from my high perch.
I do not remember the exact day and year when, in too many American hearts, the flag became reduced to a decorative piece of cloth suitable for warm-up jackets, and the national anthem to a familiar jingle heralding the start of a ball game or when ``patriot'' became a dirty word. But I know for certain that it was not when I was 3 and 4 and 5.
Oh, Daddy, why did you have to go
so far away,
and so forever?
The parade has passed you by this time,
and I don't wave my little flag anymore,
or fear for the bursting of my heart . . .
except from grief.
There is no one left to hoist me up
on broad shoulders,
and I cannot see
the marching band. by CNB