Took the wife and kids to Fort McHenry about a month ago for a brief vacation. In my experience, the Park Service gives the traveling public a great value for money at all our National Parks. At Fort McHenry, the first thing you do is see a brief movie about the history of the National Anthem. At the end of the movie, a curtain at the side of the theater opens, and you get a view of the fort, with the flag flying over it. A male chorus (I think it's the Marine Corps Chorus) sings the first verse of The Anthem. Unlike most renderings of The Anthem, such as you get before the opening pitch, this version is done without instrumental accompaniment. There is no Wah Wah Wah murdering of tune by some pop star.

It has class.

You look out the window, you see the flag, you stand, you place your hand over your heart, and just for that moment, you're not a PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER., a PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER., a Jew, a black, a Catholic, a latino. You're just an American. It feels good.


Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

You should take the family and visit Frederick, MD, the final resting site for the distinguished author of that poem – Francis Scott Key.

Frederick also is close by to many of the historic Civil War battle sites, the Nation Museum of Civil War Medicine and many other historic sites.

Pete

Yeah - a LOT of history in the valley between Harpers Ferry and Fredrick. We will sit up on my wife's gandparent's porch (well - now the "family" house) and sometimes talk Civil War history - and point out what went on where. Then talk about Mary's Gret Great Grandfather (I think it's Great Great anyway - might be off) - He was a Surgeon with the Union Army during the war - they still have/had his letters home (I say had/have because the collection is now actually at Hopkins in the Library) - A lot of history, and a bunch of artifacts from it sitting in that house

As a person who's family has only been in this country since the 1920s, it's very interesting to sit, and talk history with my wife's family, who have been here since the Mayflower

And then there's that other famous Fredrickan -

Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.
A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;
The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman's deed and word;
"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog!
March on!" he said.

Barbara Fritchie, by John Greenleaf Whittier