| Colin Kaepernick would be proud of the way some New Hampshire area local boards open their monthly meetings …by choosing “No!” to saluting our American Flag before their monthly meetings. As if on cue from the NFL, our area local boards are “taking a knee” right under our noses! Since attending some of these local area board meetings (town & school) in the last few months, I’ve learned that all but one of the SAU 35 White Mountain School Boards have chosen NOT to say the 10-second Pledge to our Flag! Why would they choose to do this to words which unify our citizens, which assimilate newcomers to our culture and way of life, which honor members of the community-at-large whom these board members represent, such as the infirmed, the elderly, the taxpayers, the parents, the veterans, the businesses, and the children for whom they should be setting an example? Shouldn’t these board members show some gratitude to the hard-working taxpayers whose American “greenbacks,” whether in the form of local tax dollars or in the form of federal grant monies, pay for many, if not all, of the facilities, heat, salaries, books, programs, transportation, lunches, after-school programs, field trips, sports programs, computers & technology, pensions, and other necessary items like electricity which make these schools function? We also pay for the SAU building which comprises many additional departments, equipment, and personnel. One very important historical event that occurred in America during its formation as to why these local New Hampshire town and school boards, as well as state boards, should be saluting our American flag before their monthly meetings goes back to June 21, 1788 when the independent state of New Hampshire was THE crucial and all-important state who cast the 9th vote (2/3 vote needed by the 13 states) to ratify the Constitution, thus creating the newly-formed “United States of America.” We created this new Constitutional Republic and the new symbol of the “red, white, and blue.” How can we create a new country with a new symbol, and then refuse to honor it every chance we get? It’s like creating a child, and then abandoning it! Some of these boards don’t even display our American flag to its rightful place of honor during public meetings. I guess selectboard members, planning board members, school board members, and other officials were never Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or perhaps never served in the military. Some boards have our American flag up on a wall hidden from view by a pile of boxes, while others place our American flag in the alcove near the bathroom door, hidden dastardly from public view. There’s a whole book dedicated to proper placement of our American flag whether it be displayed at local public meetings, on a street, from a building, with foreign flags, on one’s door post, on one’s porch, over a door, when to fly it at half-staff, when to fly it at full-staff, how long to fly it on holidays (Veterans’ Day = full staff all day; Memorial Day – half-staff until noon only, and then raised to full-staff). A Fifth-Grade teacher had a wonderful reason why his students should always salute our American flag…”see those 50 stars,” he would explain. “They represent millions and millions of other Americans whom you never get to see or meet personally. Saluting our flag is a way of saying, ‘Hello!’ to each of them every day!” Nick De Mayo, Sugar Hill, NH |
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