Just to preface...I just spent three days in an intense, eight-hours-a-day leadership education training workshop where I trained to teach a class called Key of Liberty to the homeschooling co-op three of my kids will be part of this year. As a simulation of the class, I participated in a condensed version of what the students will be doing over 9 months time, only I did it in 3 days. I wrote papers, prepared a lecture, was the delegate for Rhode Island in a simulation of the debates and vote for independence, participated in a book colloquium, did document study on Thomas Paine's The American Crisis #1, memorized a significant portion of the Declaration of Independence, and participated in a Constitution Bowl. It was incredible, really! There is no doubt in my mind that I need to educate myself on our history and constitution and I get to have fun doing it and share it with Jonah and Cody, my 12 year-olds.
As part of this experience, I earned the American Heritage award (which our students will be doing) by passing off a series of requirements, among which was one to write a paper on What America Means to Me. Here's the paper that I wrote:
Freedom and Pancakes
I behold him sitting there like a fixture,
At a table
Which has been dressed in patriotic bunting.
He wouldn’t miss it,
This moment,
This breakfast,
This chance to remember.
What do pancakes have to do with the signing of the Declaration of Independence? With freedom? Or our country’s founding? Nothing; unless, you grew up in my family and your Dad was my incredibly patriotic, blubber-like-a-baby-when-he-salutes-the-flag, dad.
He was the father of the Fourth of July Pancake Breakfast in our stake growing up in Salem, OR. He served there as Bishop of our ward in the 80’s. I was a teenager; but, even then during the most self-absorbed state of my existence, I knew how much my dad adored his country.
He’d get us all up early on the morning of the Fourth of July, shooing us out of bed so we could go eat luke-warm pancakes and greasy bacon and remember.
The tables were set up in the church parking lot with their crisp, white cloths and red & blue stars and buntings. Sometimes I was assigned to set tables or put out chairs. I don’t remember minding, though past whining tends to be forgotten more quickly than past deeds of service.
The boy scouts and their fumbling flag ceremonies are ever-present in these memories, but perfected when coupled with the vision of my dad, hand-over-heart, tears shining in his eyes, pledging fervent allegiance to the country he loves.
The program of the day varied but words were usually spoken about the founding of our country. Perhaps children would sing a song, giggling and squirming while they energetically waved miniature flags in their hands.
After eating our fill and chatting with friends and neighbors, we’d clean up and go about our day, possibly sick with pancakes and syrup, bacon and juice, but full of what truly satisfies: joy, respect, gratitude and love for our country, its founding fathers and the liberty they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for over two hundred years ago.
Twenty years later I haven’t been home on the fourth of July for well over fifteen years. But this summer I vowed to take my seven kids on a road trip to the land of my youth. I was so looking forward to seeing family, inhaling the sights and sounds of a town I haven’t seen in years and retracing the steps of my less wrinkled years. Mostly though, I eagerly anticipated the Fourth of July pancake breakfast and seeing my dad, still shedding tears of love for his country.
In this humble vision I was not disappointed. On the morning of the fourth, I rousted as many of my children out of bed as I could manage, dressed us all in a triumvirate of patriotic hues and made my pilgrimage to the pancakes. We ate, we sang, we pledged our allegiance with tears in our eyes – my dad and I. We listened to the children sing, then oohed and aahed and clapped as they put on a parade for us. Bicycles, tricycles, scooters and wagons rolled over the hot, black surface of the asphalt bedazzled with streamers, ribbons, stars and sprays of red, white and blue.
My Dad turned to me, his cheeks a little grizzled by whiskers and age, leaning on a cane he hates, and said, “I remember…” then choked out a sob. I waited patiently for the rest as tears threatened to spill on my cheeks as well. He gained a little control and continued. “I remember parades like this when I was a boy in Greenville, UT with the children and bands and soldiers in uniform…” he trailed off re-experiencing the full glory of that childhood remembrance without words, because words could not convey it.
It was then I revisited a truth I’ve always known. I love my country because my Dad does. He never fought in a war. He never lived abroad to experience life without its freedoms. But he didn’t have to. Freedom rings true to our spirits and touches us deep in our souls. Freedom satisfies where pancakes never could. Let freedom ring.
