Memorial Weekend: "Good Job, Teach!"
We live in a time when our former Secretary of State, in a speech I find utterly mind-boggling, declares our public schools a threat to national security. I'm spending this holiday weekend thinking about the real-life influence-as opposed to cheap politicization-- of public schooling and schoolteachers on children's safety, well-being andpatriotism. On Monday morning, I will join the Northport Community Band in a concert at the Northport, Michigan Village Cemetery. And Sunday, in church, I'll share the story of my uncle, Donald Tjapkes, 
killed at 19 in the first wave of Marines on Iwo Jima, in 1945.
All weekend I'll be wishing for good weather, so marching bands and taps-playing trumpeters across the nation can commemorate the dead-- and inspire their communities.
The piece below is an updated reprint.
I'm not much of a flag waver, really. I always thought that author James Baldwin captured my feelings precisely in Notes of a Native Son when he wrote:
I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this
killed at 19 in the first wave of Marines on Iwo Jima, in 1945.All weekend I'll be wishing for good weather, so marching bands and taps-playing trumpeters across the nation can commemorate the dead-- and inspire their communities.
The piece below is an updated reprint.
I'm not much of a flag waver, really. I always thought that author James Baldwin captured my feelings precisely in Notes of a Native Son when he wrote:
I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this