In response to my 9/10 post, a friend wrote to me: "You got a post out of [that speech], but you got so much more. You were fortunate enough to be able to retrieve a tangible piece of your childhood. That's priceless. Hang on to it, always."
I think the speech occasioned even more than the retrieval of part of a childhood. When I read those 3x5 cards, I was struck perhaps most of all by the indication of the kind of civic indoctrination that was surely going on in the community where I had attended the eighth grade. The graduating class (and everyone present, probably) recited "The American's Creed" that evening, and my speech was extremely patriotic. While all that is positive, I was also struck by the impression that the 13-year-old boy who wrote and delivered that speech could very well have grown up to become an active member of the Republican Party. I even wondered whether George W. Bush could have given a similar speech at HIS eighth-grade graduation....
Provocative.
No comments:
Post a Comment