Attention, Salute, Pledge...

There are times when an event realigns our lives to reality, the event itself doesn’t have to be a major event nor the alignment tectonic, it need only to liven a reality that had become forgotten in the day to day screech of contemporary culture.  I attended such an event last week, the Knox Co. Retired Teachers Association annual luncheon to celebrate the recipients of the Associations education scholarships (our daughter being one of the recipients).  What made this event awaken me to a better reality was the sincerity and genuine honor displayed for the profession of teaching and its foundational nature to a flourishing culture.  There was no sarcasm, no cynicism or decrying of all the ills currently in education or demoralizing irony comparing the past to the present.  There was no blaming, no self-aggrandizing one alliance over another, no tearing down of one group to elevate another and none of the victim orienting self-centering that accompanies so many of our celebrations these days.  What there was, was two hours of humbling, old fashioned honoring of education, educators, and the care for a field that proclaimed loud and clear that those of the past or fully willing to allow those of the present to stand upon their shoulders to view clearly what it means to be a teacher.  As an example, I need only to share how the luncheon began.  A small neatly dressed and poised elderly women came to the podium and said, “Will each of your rise for the invocation,” and then she spoke to her God requesting His blessings upon those present.  She then turned toward the American flag, so often present but mostly invisible and said three words I haven’t heard in decades that made my realignment complete, “Attention, Salute, Pledge…

Our daughter with Mr. Tom Underwood, the man for whom her scholarship was named.