The 4th of July parade had just concluded and the crowd was streaming onto the sports field. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of people…families, individuals, young, old, teens and tweens, and everyone was there to participate or spectate the 47th Annual World Famous Porcupine Race.
The classic car show was in full swing, as the football team sold snow cones to raise money for new equipment and the girls’ volleyball team was serving up hot dogs and nachos. Connie and I were in charge of selling t-shirts, tote bags, and stuffed porcupines on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, and our booth was swamped. Connie was the cashier, while I answered questions and tied tiny flag-tossed bandannas on our Percy porcupines (after having to send my husband home to grab the box of naked stuffed animals and the pile of bandannas one of our local sheriff’s office dispatchers sewed into right-sized accessories for our fund-raiser stuffed animals). Kids and families were everywhere, and the shouts, giggles, and screams of joy could be heard from the epic water gun fight taking place nearby – sponsored by a local business.
The announcer at the grandstand was talking to the crowd…welcoming them from near and far (someone was actually there from Switzerland). It was an incredibly beautiful day – an extremely mild temperature in the low 70s by then – an extremely sharp contrast to the 100+F of the previous two years. It had been a great day so far, and the crowd was gearing up to cheer on their favorite race team to victory.
The announcer at the grandstand had started a YouTube video (audio only) about the historical events around the penning of the Star Spangled Banner. I could hear bits and pieces of it in the background as I answered, “T-shirts $15, bottled water $1,” to the myriad of questions from would-be customers on both sides of our tent. After a little while, however, something changed.
As I tied off one more porcupine bandanna, I could hear music coming over the PA system, but that’s not what initially caught my attention. As I tied off the plastic bag around the porcupine, I realized what I heard most of all was silence. The crowd – all several hundred of them – had gone silent. I realized that the music I could hear was the Star Spangled Banner being sung by someone on the YouTube video that was being played over the loud speaker.
It was then that I stood, faced the grandstand, and placed my hand over my heart…I and every mother and father, every child and grandchild, every teen and tween, every person in the place. There were high school graduates and high school dropouts; loggers and teachers; single mothers and grandparents raising their grandchildren. There were people with wealth and people on welfare, small business owners and retirees. There were locals and tourists, rednecks, state and local politicians, recently arrived residents to the area, and descendants of families that had homesteaded the valley more than 100 years ago.
And there were flags…American flags.
The Stars and Stripes hung from ATVs and pickups and porcupine cages and flag poles and even a construction crane.
And the crowd stood.
And the crowd stood.