I’ve taken my country for granted. And why shouldn’t I have? The statement makes one guilt-ridden, as though there were not enough guilt to go around.
How so, “for granted?” “My country ‘tis of thee,” we learn in grade school. The rest of the sentence goes, “sweet land of liberty” (an appositive phrase), and then a repetition of the prepositional phrase:”of thee I sing.”
Doesn’t that mean that “I” recognize this land of freedom and sing its praises?
Saluting the flag used to be a daily ritual—throughout my own school years and throughout a number of years I experienced as a teacher. When did that stop? When did schools stop teaching civics?
A few years ago, when I was still teaching, I and the class parsed the entire first stanza of the “Star Spangled Banner.” The idea was not mine- I saw it mentioned in a textbook—but the process was very effective.
The entire first stanza is one sentence. It’s a complicated sentence, the likes of which no one ever writes any more let alone sings. (Recent lyrics, overheard on drugstore intercoms, are bereft of words, of meaning. Example: “Without choo! Without choo! Without choo!”)
I’ll put you through it:
“Oh, say, can you see” (Direct address to the “you”, seemingly someone at hand, near the speaker)
“by the dawn’s early light” (when we’re seeing it, suggesting we’ve been up a while or just woken)
“what so proudly we hailed” (what we’re seeing – the thing we so proudly hailed or saluted or paid tribute to)
“by the twilight’s last gleaming” (when we hailed it—last night we assume, and now dawn is breaking once again).
Sentence not over yet! – an appositive coming up: “Whose broad stripes and bright stars” (what “we hailed” looks like), “the bombs bursting in air” (what it looked like last night, the situation)
“gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there.” So: the narrator and his comrades were assured before nightfall that the flag of freedom was in place amid the bombing, and woke to see that it was still there. The flag, freedom, prevailed.
End of question: Can you see it?
Do you take it for granted?
I was astounded when I traveled to Poland and Hungary and Austria last year to see what those countries had endured. I feared with an intense fear – I assure you – that if Trump got in office there was the possibility that our country could fall apart as those had under Hitler. I was wishing all Trump supporters were with me, so that they might see the consequences of an idle vote. Well, we know how that turned out.
I have not taken anything for granted.
If I have or have not, how does it matter? What will happen?