This show that we in the Starlite Chorale were gathering that night to rehearse was a patriotic-themed show called “Sing Out, America!” As part of our show we were singing an arrangement of the folk song “Shenandoah”, George M. Cohan’s “You’re a Grand Old Flag”, Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” and a medley of the songs belonging to our armed services — “The Marines’ Hymn”, “As Those Caissons Go Rolling Along” for the Army, “Anchors Aweigh” for the Navy, and “Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder” for the Air Force. We would be singing it at the end of September in Ocean Grove, New Jersey as part of a yearly scholarship-fund benefit for the Asbury Park Lions Club, so it was important on the night of September 14 that we have a rehearsal despite the uncertainty of the time.
A day or two after the 9/11 attack, word was getting around through e-mail and the Web that on Friday the 14th, there ought to be a patriotic candlelight vigil, to be held informally on street corners all over the United States by patriotic Americans who wanted to make a statement to ourselves and to the world. People would light candles against the darkness and wave American flags to show our love for our country, no matter what happened.
As I exited the Garden State Parkway, around 6:30 p.m. on my way to Linden, New Jersey, I began to notice that the candlelight vigil was already beginning. True enough, but candles and American flags were out in force on many of the suburban street corners on my route. People were calling out and waving to cars passing by, trying to get them to join the vigil. There were a lot of flags. I remember a very big man on one corner waving a huge flag on a big flagpole — the sort you would put on your house — way far over his head. It just amazed me, but even more it amazed me that I wanted to be on the street corners with those people. I was always someone who wondered why people had to go do things like that — wave flags in public and be sentimental and patriotic. “Don’t we all love our country?” was the thought I often had. Too often, I had seen people whose sentimental patriotism, whose love of our country, seemed only a first step on the road to hating the outsiders, whoever they were and however defined. I distrusted patriotism. That day though, I had changed. I just looked around and loved the people — out on the street corners — and places that truly belonged to my country — suburban towns and streets in New Jersey — and they belonged to me, and I belonged to them. I wanted to be counted among those who loved the USA. I discovered that my love for my country was just love, unmixed with any kind of hate towards those people who had attacked it.
But I had a choral rehearsal to go to, so I passed them by and parked in Linden near the church. I remember it being a chilly September evening, the ground a little moist from an earlier rain — not unpleasant, but a foretaste of the coming autumn. The Starlite Chorale waited outside the door to Stryker Hall for someone with a key to come and let us in. We talked about 9/11 as well as our upcoming show. Then, I think our director appeared with the key, but stopped us before we went in, and said: “Let’s not stay in and rehearse when all these people are out on the street. We should go out and sing with the people!” So that is what we did. As we walked along we sang familiar hymns as well as singing “America the Beautiful”, and “My Country ’tis of Thee”. Wherever there were people gathered that night, we stopped and sang with them.
We stopped in front of a restaurant and asked if we could sing for them. Of course they said yes. The windows were open and we sang our patriotic songs. We started to develop a following. I think it would be so rare for 20 people to be all walking together along the street that you almost couldn’t help but gain a following of people asking “Why are all these people walking along together?” There was a pretty girl wearing a T-shirt with the paratrooper emblem of the 101st Airborne Division. She said that her fiancé was currently serving our country, and could we sing the Army song for her. So we sang our military medley, dedicated to him and all the soldiers and sailors protecting our country. We moved on and arranged ourselves on the steps of City Hall to sing more of our show and more of our songs for the people who’d followed along. I noticed a young twentysomething man, with purple hair, no less, who you would pass on the street with no idea that the heart of a patriot beat within him. But there he was, singing along. Maybe, like me, he had had no idea that he had any form of an unashamed patriot’s heart.
So that is why, when we in the United States officially commemorate the date of September 11 and remember those killed in the attack and those heroes who died trying to rescue them, in my heart there is another date to celebrate. I call this day Rededication Day. It was September 14, 2001, a late-summer Friday night, when I and without doubt many of my countrymen realized the deep love we have for our country and its people, a love that had been there all along but was waiting for something to wake it. It’s only when you understand that something is in jeopardy that you can see it for the precious thing it is. It is unlikely that we as a nation will commemorate this day, but I believe there are thousands of people across the nation who will remember it. Rededication Day would be a day when Americans would stand on street corners, light candles, wave flags and sing the songs of love for our country and our heritage. It doesn’t have to wait for September. Let it be today, on the anniversary of Dr. King’s birth. Let it be tomorrow, at midnight, when Barack Obama becomes our next president, or during the Inaugural celebration. Just let it be. Let us rededicate ourselves to liberty, rededicate ourselves to our Constitution, and rededicate ourselves to the protection and continued success of the United States of America.
“Our fathers’ God, to Thee, author of Liberty, to thee we sing,
Long may our land be bright with Freedom’s holy light,
Protect us by thy might, great God, our King.”
– Samuel Francis Smith, “America”
