WHEN I WAS IN THE FOURTH GRADE

This is a guest post by FJ Rocca.

We began each day with the Lord’s Prayer, standing quietly with bowed head

And hands clasped in reverent respect. It was a Christian prayer,

but meant to be broadminded in the way America was broadminded, open, welcoming.

Our teacher, she was what we called an Old Maid, a fine and honored citizen

Who loved children and for whom teaching was a vocation, a calling

And not just a job. She read to us from her favorite books of stories.

There was one called “Dan’s Boy” and another one whose title escapes me,

About a child whose father fought in the Revolutionary War and who hid

In the barn from the British while his father joined the ranks of militia men at Bunker Hill.

There was another book, too, about some little fellow called the Bee Man of Orn,

And for the life of me I can’t remember much about the stories,

But I remember well Miss D, who read them to us with such pleasure.

She led us too, through National Anthem by Francis Scott Key and patriotic songs

By Irving Berlin and George M. Cohan, You’re a Grand Old Flag and God Bless America.

She stood with us, her hand upon her heart, and said the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.

Only when all that was done, she taught arithmetic, geography, and more importantly,

She taught us how to understand the lessons of our country’s gloried history.

But she taught us, too, about the terrible times, lessons about the slaves and cruelties

That should have never been, thus, had to be reversed, because we are too fine a nation,

A melting pot of joy and gorgeous plenty, and of President Lincoln,

As much a part of all that history, as was the grand Miss Liberty, who standing watch,

Welcomed faces from so many foreign lands, people now blessed to be Americans,

And to add their presence, their stories and their songs to that melting pot.

 FJ Rocca is an independent, conservative writer/blogger of fiction and non-fiction, most interested in the philosophy of American conservatism. Clarity is more important than eloquence, but truth is vital to human discourse.