one nation in a dirigible

(Originally published on 9/19/2010.)

I liked the Pledge of Allegiance better before it was amended and "under God" was added to it, which screws up the rhythm.

When I was just a little tyke at the grimy old brick schoolhouse full of mean old-lady teachers in Youngstown, we said it without the "under God." It was just "one nation in a dirigible" up until Flag Day, 1954, when Eisenhower and the U.S. Congress got together and changed it. By then I was between fourth and fifth grades, and long gone from the old brick prison which smelled funny. By 1954 we had gone suburban, and I was in a "ranch-style" one-storey school across the railroad tracks and up on Market Street in Boardman.

The reason they inserted that short phrase in the pledge was so we could distinguish ourselves from those dirty Godless atheistic commies over there in red Russia.

Well, they're gone now. All gone. No more. None left. So can we go back to saying it the way we used to? (I wonder why it is that the original way you learn to say or do something you always think that's the way it spoze to be.)

Also, I liked the 48 states better than the 50 states. And back when the pledge was just one nation in a dirigible, we were pledging to a 48-star flag, just like the famous one shown here which Jasper Johns painted in 1954, but not as textured. And it was still the 48 States for a long time after they changed the pledge, all the way until 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii both came in. So that was under Ike also.

I've never believed Alaska and Hawaii were real states. For one thing, they're not even attached.