“I'm a Yankee Doodle dandy
A Yankee Doodle, do or die
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam
Born on the Fourth of July
I've got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart
She's my Yankee Doodle joy
Yankee Doodle came to London
Just to ride the ponies
I am the Yankee Doodle boy.” (I’m A Yankee Doodle Dandy”/George M. Cohan)
Back in my younger years, when the more Red, White, and Blue, you had displayed in your front yard or porch, was a TRUE sign of LOVING AMERICA, and flags GALORE was the symbol of all American Patriotism, and God Bless America, seemed as if it had been written in the Constitution…come the Fourth of July a special presentation of the 1942 movie Yankee Doodle Dandy would be played on TV, and most families watched it as if THAT TOO, was a sign of how much you loved your country. Back in those days, my Dad, being a Sargent of Police for the Squirrel Hill Precinct, would enlist his other Police buds, along with the Jewish War Veterans, and walk the neighborhoods, carrying dozens of 24” mini flags, planting each of them on the front lawns of almost every home. On the Fourth, ALL retail stores were closed, as well as bars (somehow, no matter which day of the week the 4th fell, it was like a Sunday in Pittsburgh, and treated like a religious holy day), and neighborhoods HELD parades. My father was responsible for the safety of the Parade Participants as well as the Spectators in Squirrel Hill, (as I remember the real fear was that someone would set off handheld SPARKLERS, and as Grandma’s always cautioned someone’s finger would fall off causing chaos.) The parades took more time to begin than actually PARADE through the neighborhood, but at the time it made everyone FEEL PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, and to HATE THOSE COMMUNISTS AND DICTATORS! Back in my younger years, growing up in the 1950s, as I have often stated, things were simple…there was good OR bad…there was right OR wrong…there was black OR white…
In the year 2021, as we celebrate a holiday which NOW seems to have a confusing meaning to it I just read the following: On the final day of June, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy gave us an extraordinary display of what he and the Republican Party have become. On the same day that McCarthy voted against a Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection, he demanded an investigation into Fox News Host Tucker Carlson’s baseless and paranoid charge that the National Security Agency was reading his emails. (MSNBC) Got to wonder what the fuck Uncle Sam is thinking about his NATION, NOW!
