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Although hard-core flag-waving patriotism underwent a revival as recently as 1986, that brief upswing was merely an aberration. When you're talking about demonstrative patriotism, everybody from President Reagan on down complains that we Americans just don't have as much as we used to.
Why is this?
Is it because children no longer start the school day
with the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, three
canned prayers, an extended Longfellow recitation and four
verses of America the Beautiful
?
Or because our holidays are no longer thought-provoking interruptions of our work week, but mindless extensions of our weekends?
When Memorial Day came on a Tuesday or Thursday, it could give occasion to think of the sacrifices of our soldiers. A one-day observance provided just enough time for the VFW parade to the ceremonies at the local cemetery, followed by a picnic in the mountains.
But when Memorial Day always comes on a Monday, it's merely the summer onset of American decadence, celebrated with enhanced tans and traffic jams.
Could it be that we Americans are no longer all that proud of being Americans? It's difficult enough to admit that you live on the same planet as Ollie North, Donna Rice, Sean Penn, Ivan Boesky or Yuppies, and nobody in his right mind would boast about sharing a country with them.
However, the real reason for the continuing decline in patriotism is not cynicism, hedonism, or atheism. We aren't patriotic any more because it's illegal to express our devotion to America.
When I was a kid, no holiday was more glorious, and none more eagerly anticipated, than Independence Day.
We were exuberant about being Americans. Kids in Russia didn't get to hide in a ditch and throw cherry bombs at the town cop's car when it went by. They didn't get to load lit ladyfingers in slingshots and fire them at stray dogs. No doubt they'd have been sent to Siberia if they had ever used galvanized pipe to build cannons that shot ball bearings, powered by gaudy red M-80's.
Naturally, all of this was illegal in Colorado, even back then. The law had about as much effect as the 55-mph speed limit, because we weren't far from Wyoming.
Colorado lawmakers might have been under the influence of traitors, Communists and other subverters of our patriotic impulses. But Wyoming was run by 100 percent Americans who remained steadfast to our traditional ideals: strings of Black Cats and Zebras for routine pandemonium; three-inch Silver Salutes for shattering the neighbors' windows; rockets in all sizes, from the puny bottle fliers which barely cleared the roof to formidable missiles with yard-long tails that might have brought down airplanes.
Our patriotism swelled with every barrage we set off. Fireworks also made us appreciate the American system of free enterprise, in that you could make a tidy sum bootlegging the explosive contraband from Cheyenne to Greeley.
Then one year my dad stuck an M-80 under a coffee can, and ended up with 75 stitches in his face. That quieted family celebrations for a while. By the time that settled, the local authorities started taking the law seriously.
When I was 16, I made the happy discovery that even though firecrackers were illegal, just about anybody could walk into a hardware store and ask for a case of 40-percent Gelex No. 2, along with a box of primers and a roll of Bickford fuse.
My patriotism grew so that I almost dropped out of high school and enlisted for Vietnam. Not only was dynamite perfectly legal, it made considerably more noise. What more could a wholesome American boy want?
Unfortunately, some muckraking reporters for the Denver newspapers decided that Colorado's explosives laws were a scandal which had to be exposed. The legislature quickly provided more do-gooder legislation to discourage the audible expression of one's love of his country.
Every now and again, even in these decadent times, I'll luck across a dozen bootleg bottle rockets or a string of illicit ladyfingers. For a few splendid moments, I exult being an American. Then the police car comes around the block, I duck behind the fence, and my kids tell me that they're more grown up than I am.
That's what happened to American patriotism.
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