Читать книгу Fear Itself - Candida Lawrence - Страница 4

On my first day of school, I encountered the Pledge of Allegiance. At dinner I asked: “What’s a pledge?” My father said, “A pledge is a promise.”

“What’s leegence?” He wasn’t quick to answer, and I moved on, “What’s a republic?”

“It’s a country whose citizens vote to choose who will lead them.… I suppose your next question is ‘indivisible’?” Yeah, I said. Yes, said my mother, not yeah. “Liberty and justice I’ll explain tomorrow,” he said. “I have a headache. Tonight I just want to say that you do not have to recite the pledge when the teacher tells you to, or ever.”

“But I have to; everyone has to.”

He looked pained, “No, you don’t have to, because you cannot promise to respect a country today when it might not behave well next month, or tomorrow. Understand?”

I acknowledge his early influence on a child already not much inclined to follow rules. I wish he were alive to tangle with me today on which windmills to challenge. He died in 1981.

Special thanks to Fred Ramey, always kind, patient, faithful and clever, and to Kathy Chetkovich who has read most that I’ve written and has found something to praise even in weak efforts.