The turkey was late for Thanksgiving dinner, so we put a football game on TV.  It was just starting, and a young man stood up to sing the National Anthem.  My husband and I stood up and put our hands over our hearts while we listened to the National Anthem.  In a group of almost a dozen, we were the only ones.  Corny, I know.  But I miss corny.  I miss old America.  That’s my husband and I, the old Americans.

We grew up going to school everyday, saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag, reading a psalm from the Bible, and saying a prayer.  That started every day at school.  The Ten Commandments were hung in every classroom.  The worse things kids did then was to run in the hall or chew gum in class.  We had classes in art and music.  In music class, we learned to sing the good old songs.  At Christmas, we learned all the Christmas Carols.  We had a Christmas tree at school, and we had a Christmas program.  The founders of our country were devout Christians.  They knew that children should not be left to “find their own ways.”  They were to be nurtured, guided, directed toward becoming good citizens of a great country.   Separation of church and state meant that the government was not allowed to establish a state religion,  In the old countries of Europe, the governments determined that all their citizens had to be Catholic, or Protestant, or Lutheran.  We were free to choose our religion and we were free to celebrate that religion everywhere.  It is freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.

The movie “Fiddler on the Roof” is a story of a Jewish family surviving in a small town in Russia.  The father sings a wonderful song called “Tradition.”  The song illustrates that the traditions observed by the Jewish people protected them from obliteration.  Their traditions enabled them to remain a “people” wherever they went for thousands of years.  America is being stripped of her traditions under the guise of offending someone or limiting certain imaginary “rights.”  When we lose our traditions, we lose ourselves.  We become anything and nothing.  We cease to become Americans.