<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Fourth of July musings on symbols, patriotism, and identity]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by randino http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-02-fourth-july-symbol-patriotism/ Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:44:14 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-02-fourth-july-symbol-patriotism/1 Delightful.  However for people of a certain age and political tendency, embracing the flag is kind of like embracing someone who broke your heart, emptied the bank account, got sole custody of the kids, and turned all your friends against you.  It is also the symbol of people who used to beat you up.

Glad you can do it, but it is still a bridge a little too far for me. 

Randy Cunningham

 

]]> Delightful.  However for people of a certain age and political tendency, embracing the flag is kind of like embracing someone who broke your heart, emptied the bank account, got sole custody of the kids, and turned all your friends against you.  It is also the symbol of people who used to beat you up.

Glad you can do it, but it is still a bridge a little too far for me. 

Randy Cunningham

 

]]> Comment #2 by Ken Ward http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-02-fourth-july-symbol-patriotism/ Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:47:01 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-02-fourth-july-symbol-patriotism/2 Randy, I'm driving two of the kids (Simon 7 and Kuba 10) to camp yesterday, barely awake because I haven't had that second cup yet, and can't stop from saying, "oh sh*t" when the lights go off on a cop car behind us. Kuba, who's alert to nuance and can swear like a sailor, asks what's up, and so I tell them a little bit about what it was like when I was not much older then he is now, and me & my friends were routinely "hassled" by "the fuzz." 40 years later (and having not had a stash in my car for decades), I can still get that sudden leaden feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see gumballs go off. Both kids were fascinated and asked many questions. They seemed most interested in how we stood out (much to my relief; it didn't seem to occur to them to ponder why we might be subjects of interest). They marveled that long hair, jeans and a couple of earrings on a teenage boy could get you pulled over or rousted, and I suddenly had a vivid recollection of one time I was hitching from Boston to Amherst in a snowstorm, going the northern way on Route 2, and got dropped off outside some town, Gardner I think it was, and had barely put out my thumb before the cop car rolls up. Those days, police didn't get out for the likes of us, they'd just roll the window down and you'd have to walk over to them and they always seemed to have an American flag decal on that left rear window...   I remember the Gardner cop because he put me in the back seat, drove to a diner, bought me a coffee and donut and then dropped me off on the other side of town, one of those occasional gruff human acts a white boy might get, but I'll bet I wasn't wearing my patched jeans that day, the ones modeled after the cover of Neal Young's first album, the ones with the American flag patch just like the one on every cop uniform, carefully hand-sewn on the ass.

]]> Randy, I'm driving two of the kids (Simon 7 and Kuba 10) to camp yesterday, barely awake because I haven't had that second cup yet, and can't stop from saying, "oh sh*t" when the lights go off on a cop car behind us. Kuba, who's alert to nuance and can swear like a sailor, asks what's up, and so I tell them a little bit about what it was like when I was not much older then he is now, and me & my friends were routinely "hassled" by "the fuzz." 40 years later (and having not had a stash in my car for decades), I can still get that sudden leaden feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see gumballs go off. Both kids were fascinated and asked many questions. They seemed most interested in how we stood out (much to my relief; it didn't seem to occur to them to ponder why we might be subjects of interest). They marveled that long hair, jeans and a couple of earrings on a teenage boy could get you pulled over or rousted, and I suddenly had a vivid recollection of one time I was hitching from Boston to Amherst in a snowstorm, going the northern way on Route 2, and got dropped off outside some town, Gardner I think it was, and had barely put out my thumb before the cop car rolls up. Those days, police didn't get out for the likes of us, they'd just roll the window down and you'd have to walk over to them and they always seemed to have an American flag decal on that left rear window...   I remember the Gardner cop because he put me in the back seat, drove to a diner, bought me a coffee and donut and then dropped me off on the other side of town, one of those occasional gruff human acts a white boy might get, but I'll bet I wasn't wearing my patched jeans that day, the ones modeled after the cover of Neal Young's first album, the ones with the American flag patch just like the one on every cop uniform, carefully hand-sewn on the ass.

]]> Comment #3 by randino http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-02-fourth-july-symbol-patriotism/ Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:16:04 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-02-fourth-july-symbol-patriotism/3 Happy 4th, Ken. Let those bad - and funny - old memories not deter us in the never ending job of building a decent future for those kids.  There is no better work. 

Randy Cunningham

 

]]> Happy 4th, Ken. Let those bad - and funny - old memories not deter us in the never ending job of building a decent future for those kids.  There is no better work. 

Randy Cunningham

 

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