First, some background. Mr. Kleinmeier, an old-school patriot and formerly an English teacher, had traditional ideas about teaching. In order to get us schooled in writing mechanics, he had every student write verbatim something called The Agenda, which explained "the parts of speech, the basic tools of communication." Each of us would write the whole thing down, in fourth grade, then in the fifth and sixth grades - three times, so not to forget. When the weather was warm, he'd take us out in groups in the morning to do jumping jacks, sit ups, and run around the track. Gym wasn't enough. He counted on his loudspeaker, and we hopped to action by our desks.
The bad kids who went to detention got a little something extra. Here is the text:
I AM THE NATION
I was born July 4, 1776, and The Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The blood of the world runs in my veins, because I offer freedom to the oppressed. I am the nation.
I am 250 million living souls and the ghosts of millions more who have lived, fought and died for me.
I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington and fired the shot heard around the world. I am Washington, Jefferson and Patrick Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys and Davy Crockett. I am Lee, Grant and Lincoln.
I remember the Alamo, the Maine, Pearl Harbor. When freedom called, I answered and stayed until it was over, over there. I left my heroic dead in Flanders Fields, the rock of Corregidor, on the bleak slopes of Korea, in the steaming jungle of Vietnam and the desert sands of Kuwait.
I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas, the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coal mines of the Virginias and Pennsylvania, the fertile lands of the West, the Golden Gate and Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Monitor, the Merrimack and the Challenger.
I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific... more than three million square miles of land throbbing with industry, more than two million farms. I am forest, field, mountain and desert. I am quiet villages, cities that never sleep.
Look at me; see Ben Franklin walking down the streets of Philadelphia with his bread loaf under his arm; see Betsy Ross with her needle; see the lights of Christmas and hear the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" as the calendar turns.
I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. I am 200,000 schools, colleges and more than 300,000 churches where my people worship God as they choose. I am a ballot dropped into a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium, the voice of a choir in a cathedral. I am an editorial in a newspaper and a letter to Congress.
I am John Glenn, Neil Armstrong and their fellow astronauts who whirl through space. I am Eli Whitney, Stephen Foster, Tom Edison, Albert Einstein and Billy Graham.
I am Horace Greeley, Will Rodgers, the Wright brothers. I am George Washington Carver, Jonas Salk and Martin Luther King, Jr. I am Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman and Thomas Paine.
May I always possess the integrity, courage and strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom and a beacon of hope to the world.
Yes, I am the nation. These are the things that I am. I was conceived in freedom, and God willing, in freedom I shall spend the rest of my days.
It's equal parts historical reminiscence and flag-waving - not a bad sort of thing on account of its emphasis on freedom and democracy, but still, it has that distinct ring of patriotism. Seeking to reclaim my own history, since I was among those who had to write it verbatim in detention, I began an Internet search for the text. The author is Otto Whittaker.
So much writing gets lost in time. If it weren't for the medieval monks writing down verbatim the Greek and Roman classics, we wouldn't have those to read. In a similar way, Mr. Kleinmeier kept this piece of Americana alive in my memory. Writing of this sort preserves the ethos of a generation, which in the present day gives us the ability to evaluate what matters to us most. As an example, let me share an old Etruscan temple inscription from the 5th century B.C., unearthed by Massimo Pallottino in 1964:
So much writing gets lost in time. If it weren't for the medieval monks writing down verbatim the Greek and Roman classics, we wouldn't have those to read. In a similar way, Mr. Kleinmeier kept this piece of Americana alive in my memory. Writing of this sort preserves the ethos of a generation, which in the present day gives us the ability to evaluate what matters to us most. As an example, let me share an old Etruscan temple inscription from the 5th century B.C., unearthed by Massimo Pallottino in 1964:
DEDICATION AT PYRGI
This temple and this statue
have been dedicated to Uni.
Thefarie Velianas, head of the community,
donated it for the worship of our peoples.
The temple and sanctuary
and the consecration of their boundaries
in the month of Xurvar, were given
as gifts during his three-year reign.
This record together with the divinity statue
shall thus be buried by order of the Zilach,
that the years may outlast the stars.
We'll never know Thefarie Velianas, Uni, the month of Xurvar, or the Zilach any much more than as names on the inscription, but we do know at least that they were a proud people, eager to be remembered by ensuing generations. Nothing outlasts the stars, not even us, but hopefully we'll go on with the best we've got.
