May 11, 2007
State of our Nation
When I was in Mrs. Cortwright's kindergarten class many years ago at Riverside Drive Elementary School, we took part in activities that would seem bizarrely old-fashioned to today's kids.
In that low-tech, Baby-Boom era, we viewed film-strips, threaded through big, crinkle-finish metal projectors, then waited for our teacher to place the needle on the well-worn long-playing records that provided the soundtrack; the crackles, pops and hisses serving as an intro to the booming, stentorian voice of the narrator.
And then there was the BONG that signaled it was time to turn to the next picture.
But it wasn't all static images; we had movies, too, usually produced by industry groups, featuring white-coat clad scientists and engineers, telling us about the wonders of Milk! Plastics! Trains! Nuclear Power! I loved the clackety-clack of the sprockets being pulled thought those old Bell & Howell 16-mm projectors, the splices from past breaks making the image jump.
And then there were the holidays: Labor Day, Armistice Day, Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, Lincoln's Birthday, Washington's Birthday, Easter.
We learned about the Pilgrims, the important presidents, and participated in the annual Christmas Show. I got on stage with the other pee-wees and sang "Up On the Roof Top," "Jingle Bells," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel."
Although a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, neither I nor my parents ever expressed any discomfort with the emphasis on Christmas tunes -- and I was never bothered by the idea of joining in the festivities.
I particularly remember Thanksgiving. Mrs. Cortwright told us all about the Indians and the Pilgrims, and we had all sorts of arts and crafts projects, decorating the classroom with construction-paper Pilgrim hats and Indian headdresses.
We also made the classic kindergarten turkeys, tracing the outline of our spread-fingered hands to make the bodies, then gluing yarn along the edges, adding heads and feet.
The class, filled with kids of all races -- from many countries, too -- was well on its way to making us all little Americans.
And that was a good thing.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, let's flash forward in time about 40 years to last fall, when Maricopa County Community College District Professor Walter Kehowski sent his colleagues an e-mail with the text of George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789.”
Some people complained about his provocative actions, and now the college is trying to fire him.
Welcome to the new-and-improved America.
Posted by Mike Lief at May 11, 2007 08:10 AM
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