OPINION

MASTERSON ONLINE: You can see

With all the manufactured contentions over our country’s national anthem, I took a closer look at the lyrics penned by lawyer/amateur poet Francis Scott Key during the battle at Fort McHenry in 1814.

I was searching for any phrases written 204 years ago that could possibly be considered genuinely controversial: “Twilight’s last gleaming”? “Bombs bursting in air”?

Since they never taught differently in my public schools at least 20 years back, I always assumed the anthem consisted of the familiar melody and single stanza we stand and honor at so many events.

Interestingly enough, I learned there actually are four verses and began studying each. The second stanza reads:

“On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,

’Tis the star-spangled banner—O long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

Not much I found there that offended me. How about you? I suppose a host can indeed be “haughty” and I suppose silence can be “dread.” So what?

The third verse has a couple of points for the offended possibly to debate:

“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,

That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion

A home and a Country should leave us no more?

Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Perhaps that reference about “hireling and slave” finding no refuge from their terrorizing flight or the fear of dying (written more than four decades before the Civil War) might offend someone centuries later? After all, there are those among us who seem to make a hobby of continually taking offense over something. As for the phrase, “foul footstep’s pollution,” we’re still fighting that scourge nationwide in one way or another.

The final stanza below likely would inflame some in the freedom-from-religion crowd, the ACLU or atheists since it refers to our “blest” country being rescued by heaven and our motto being trust in God. Yet that obviously was Key’s strongly emphasized belief.

“O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!

Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land

Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto—‘In God is our trust,’

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

I was reminded by this little review of history how, whether genuine or calculated and despite the states disunited by ideology today, the United States of America was launched in the spirit of unity and a sense of common purpose.

Need a nation full

I’m sitting in the audience at the Westark Council’s annual Golden Eagle Awards dinner honoring Harrison Realtor and civic contributor Jerry Jackson when an Eagle Scout takes the podium to remind us what those who attain the highest rank in scouting believe in.

The young man speaks sincerely of an Eagle Scout’s love of country, honor, truth, ethics, kindness, helping others, reverence, fairness, worship, bravery, trustworthiness, independence, conservation and a dedication to protecting the environment to name but several qualities.

The crowd listens intently before giving the young Eagle a standing ovation. I am reminded how our nation, awash in whining and calculated protests, still has such caring young citizens as part of this next generation.

I only wish there were a lot more than the approximately 56,000 Eagle Scouts active across the nation today.

More choose cremation

We recently attended a memorial service for a dear friend and combat veteran. As with increasing numbers nowadays, there was no casket and traditional burial. Instead, Glen Fairchild was cremated, and a beautiful urn containing his ashes placed in a columbarium wall at the Veterans Cemetery.

For a variety of reasons, including cost and simplification, cremation is becoming the most popular method for saying our final farewells in these United States.

The cremation rate in the United States reportedly has been increasing steadily. The national average rate reportedly skyrocketed from 3.56 percent in 1960 to 48.6 percent by 2015. The Cremation Association of North America has forecast a rate of 54.3 percent by 2020.

Cremation is often thousands of dollars cheaper than burial since it requires no casket, embalming, or cemetery plot. Partially due to cremation, the number of funeral homes fell almost 10 percent between 2005 and 2015, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, dropping from 21,495 to 19,391.

Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.

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