For several years after 9/11, the seventh-inning stretch at Minnesota Twins games was fouled by the Twins organization encouraging the raucous singing of Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to Be an American.” Actually that last phrase is redundant. Nobody ever sings that song any way but raucous. Adding it to the seventh-inning stretch always seemed a corruption of innocence to me, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” being the most harmless of songs.
I would have used the title of Greenwood’s song as the heading of this entry if it wouldn’t have rung the echo of the jingoes’ anthem. Because the inauguration of Barack Obama did indeed make me deeply proud to be an American citizen. There are a lot of us who nodded in agreement a few months ago when Michelle Obama--now our First Lady--said something about how being proud of her country wasn't a feeling she could take for granted.
I’d unwittingly signed up to work the night at my call-center job tonight, but arriving a few minutes early for my 5:15 shift I saw one of the TVs in the lobby tuned to the swearing-ins and the inauguration. Another American and I stood there for over half an hour watching as much of it as we could, from Rick Warren to Aretha Franklin to the swearing in of Joe Biden, to Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman (and a couple of other instrumentalists I didn't recognize) playing Aaron Copland. And then came the swearing in of Barack Hussein Obama--as amazing in name and it was in deed--and his inaugural speech. Surely I wasn't the only one who was relieved even for him to make it to the end of his presidential oath without the in-breaking of some ballistic mayhem that would threaten his life. And then came the resonance of his somber, uplifting speech. My fellow American and I ended up being late to work, staying there in the lobby until the end of his speech. No one could have gotten either of us to move. Being on time for a few hours of market research couldn’t hold a candle to the most important event of the day. Even the Brits, both black and white, who put other things on hold for a few minutes to watch were caught up in what was happening.
More on this later, I'm sure.
2 comments:
That fabulous quartet wasn't playing Copland's arrangement of Simple Gifts; that was a John Williams composition especially for the inauguration. I couldn't stop thinking about how he normally writes music to underscore dramatic moments in movies, to make stories richer and more exciting, and how this was not a work of fiction but a true story. An amazing turn in America's plot. It was beautiful.
I stand corrected. Thanks, Lindsay. I couldn't hear that part of the broadcast very well. Just parts of the (apparently pre-recorded) music itself!
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