Today’s guest post comes from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty.

Greetings, Civilians!

I want to share this old photo with you – it was taken from the capsule of Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve, 1968. It is an historic image of the Earthrise, as seen from the moon.

I’ve been thinking about this photo a lot.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that today is the Fourth of July. And I certainly don’t need to explain how I feel about exploding things! That fact that anybody, anywhere would willingly cause something to blow up violently completely concusses my safety-conscious mind!

It’s fair to say that anyone who invites me to go to Wisconsin to buy skyrockets with them, or wants me to watch while they set off a string of firecrackers, is going to get a stern lecture instead of the thrill they were seeking. I find nothing exciting about loud noises and the smell of gunpowder, except for the potential satisfaction i might get from shaming someone for putting us all in such danger.

Is it even possible to have an explosion-free Fourth of July?

I was going to say “go to a movie”, but there’s plenty of violence there. Grilling is an alternative, but some hot dogs do have a tendency to blow up. I have spent most of my adult life engaged in a public service campaign to discourage the very kind of celebration that seems to make up most of the Fourth of July. Not that I’ve had much success.

Sigh.

Why do we have to glorify the bomb? I blame it on human nature and the National Anthem.

As humans, we are enthralled by things that are loud and bright and dangerous. I know this is not a popular position, but we have to face it. The Star Spangled Banner has been misused, and its unfortunate popularity in a shortened version at sporting events has served to oversimplify the message and nullify the poetry. Yet it could be reclaimed so easily.

Here’s the part that we sing:

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Note that the rockets and the bombs come in at the most emotional moment in the verse. No wonder we’re so explodo-centric!

What if we brought forward some of the other verses of TSSB? The song is based on a four stanza poem by Francis Scott Key – “Defence of Fort McHenry“. And yet we only sing one of the stanzas!

The others are more poetic and less violent. In particular, here’s my favorite.

On the shore dimly seen thro’ 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 on 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!

Why can’t we sing THIS stanza at a ballgame every now and then? In addition to putting great words (haughty, reposes) into the mouths of ordinary American sports fans, the key lines focus on a glorious dawn rather than bombs being hurled at the foe.

And if a simple sunrise doesn’t stir you, think of it in terms of the photo above – the sun revealing a rising Earth, with the USA front and center, if you wish.

In my safety-obsessed fantasies, we would adopt this sun-centric stanza as our standard verse for “The Star Spangled Banner” and gradually transition from having a bomb-worshiping culture to one that values a simple sunrise.

Is that too much to ask?

Yours in safety,
Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty