Carrot Top

 Hello e-friends.

Don’t you just love this run up to Memorial Day? Longer days, vacation plans (Disney!), exorbitantly expensive gas prices. In all of this frenzied preparation for summer fun, just don’t forget that Monday, May 26 is more than a 3-day weekend and the kickoff to summer travel season – it has meaning (see my blog on Memorial Day if you need a little reminding – we all do sometimes).

So, all of this summer fun talk overshadowing Memorial Day reminds me of another patriotic day - actually a whole week- Flag Day.

Although Flag Day is celebrated on June 14, that entire week is designated as “National Flag Week”. I think this is a super-fabuloso idea, to designate an entire week to Old Glory, our greatest national symbol. She deserves that kind of reverence.

Ok, LOL, “Lexi, will you please get off your soap box?” (as my dad would say). Yes dad….where was I? Ah, yes. Flag Day commemorates (You guessed it!) the adoption of the U.S. flag by the Second Continental Congress. Wanna make it a daily double? LOL. When did that happen? Wow, June 14, 1777! But it wasn’t until 1916 that President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day. Let me just interject something here (sorry dad!). It really seems like we didn’t start “gelling” as a country until shortly after the turn of the 20^th century. That’s when a lot of legislation was passed establishing America’s patriotic symbols & celebrations. I think I’ll have to do a thesis on that some day. Well, I will have a shot soon since my ambition is to become a Vexillologist. And I’ll be the best-dressed patriotic geek in the room, ‘fo ‘sho.

Anyway, (wow – sorry – think I need to take some Ginko today) there is a little more fun trivia about Flag Day I’d like to share with you.

• Pennsylvania is the only state to celebrate Flag Day as a state holiday. Why? Because it’s not an official federal holiday.
• Troy, New York claims to have the largest Flag Day parade (see you there – I’ll be the girl handing out miniature flags in the cutest Jimmy Choo’s you’ve ever seen).
• According to Wikipedia, there are a lot of competing claims about flag day: “Perhaps the most fervent claim dates to 1885, when a schoolteacher, Bernard J. Cigrand, reportedly urged the students at the public school in Waubeka, Wisconsin to observe June 14 as “Flag Birthday.” He moved to Chicago to attend dental school, and in June 1886 wrote an article titled “The Fourteenth of June” which was published in the Chicago Argus newspaper. He continued to promote the idea, and by June 1811, 300,000 children gathered in parks throughout Chicago to celebrate the day.” – Thanks Wiki – I just love you!

K folks – I have to run. KC is picking me up to check out a BOGO sale at Macy’s!

Until next time,

Lexi (and please don’t forget to fly your flag half-staff until noon on Memorial Day!)

Hello e-friends.

One thing I just love about summer is minor league baseball – just got back from a Devil Rays game. The popcorn, the hot dogs, the energy of 2000 people doing “the wave” (LOL – awesomely cheesy!), and the wonderful sound that kicks off every game – The singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” Remember last blog, I was telling you about this super-cute red, white and blue silk dress that made me want to belt out that song? Well, I finally had the chance to wear it (that’s right - fashion does not take a backseat just because you are eating mustard. Plus, flip-flops are horrid!) and I do think it was the perfect complement to the beautiful lyrics of Our National Anthem.

So, I bet you know what’s coming next…..ha! That’s right. What is the history of “The Star-Spangled Banner“? Who wrote it? And how did it become the most beloved song in the United States? One that complements baseball and apple pie more than my strappy Jimmy Choo’s complement that super-fabuloso silk dress.

Well, way back in the summer of 1813, in Baltimore, flagmaker Mary Pickersgill made a 15-star, 15-stripe flag commissioned by George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry. This early version of Old Glory (which came to be known as the Star Spangled Banner Flag) was raised over the fort on the morning of September 14, 1814, to signal America’s victory over the British in the Battle of Baltimore.

This piece of dyed English wool bunting and cotton, waving at the entrance of Fort McHenry that dawn, inspired one Francis Scott Key, an American lawyer and poet, to write a poem “Defence of Fort McHenry” (no, that’s not a typo – LOL – it’s how defense was spelled – British spelling methinks?) on the back of a letter he had in his pocket. Can you imagine if he had no scrap paper? Hmm. I often ponder that. Sort of like “What if Paris and Nicole had never lived The Simple Life?”. The world would be a different place…

Anyway, so Francis writes this poem, and then gives it to his brother-in-law, who was a judge. Ok, this is my favorite part……His brother-in-law realized that the words fit the tune of an English Drinking Song, “To Anacreon in Heaven” (that’s right! Ha! Just like 100 bottles of beer on the wall….a drinking song!). This judge (who I bet knew how to enjoy a beer) gave the poem to a printer in Baltimore and anonymous copies were printed. I think something like two of these survive – and you can add one of those copies to what I would trade my Blahnik’s for (but maybe not ten pairs this time; more like 8 – LOL).

Ok, I’m digressing into fashion – think I must have shoes on the brain today. Anyway, the printing got picked up by the press (with a reference to “Tune: Anacreon in Heaven”), and then it spread like wildfire among newspapers – faster than Britney’s latest escapade. The song was published by Thomas Carr and was first performed at…..take a wild guess….yep, that’s right – a bar! Well, once you’ve endeared Americans that way, the rest, as they say, is history.

In 1889, Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy signed General Order #374, making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official song played at the raising of the flag. Fast forward all the way to March 3, 1931 when President Herbert Hoover signs a law adopting “The Star Spangled Banner” as our national anthem (we do move like snails sometimes, no?).

Well, that’s about a wrap e-friends. If you want to see the anthem-inspring Star Spangled Banner Flag, it’s on display in National Museum of American History. And Key’s original manuscript is on display at the Maryland Historical society.

Until next time, Lexi

And here it is, our beloved national anthem:

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!