Favorite Patriotic Songs?

I’m putting together some patriotic music for Sweet Daughter, and I’m looking for some input – both for song titles and versions. For instance, I’m having a devil of a time finding an understandable vocal arrangement of the “Star Spangled Banner”. Choirs are lovely, but I’m hoping SD will learn the words. And did you know that if you put “Patriotic” in the album title, you have NO idea what you’re in for. Especially if the genre is “New Age”.

This album was titled “Songs Patriotic” and had this song listing:

My Country ' Tis Of Thee
Country Roads (Take Me Home)
America The Beautiful
America
Star Spangled Banner

Okay, even with Country Roads, I’m on board with this. Then we have:

Shower the People
Here Comes The Sun
Nights In White Satin

I beg your pardon???? This was followed by:

Amazing Grace
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Homeward Bound
Coast To Coast

WTH????

Out of curiosity, I click to listen to a few snippets of song, and it’s freakin’ Zamphir. Okay. I don’t know if it’s really Zamfir, but those are either Pan pipes or somebody’s been slipping something into my Lucky Charms. I also came across patriotic music on bagpipes (yay!) and accordion (I kept looking for the St. Pauli girl to show up with those huge jugs mugs of beer).

Anyhow, the songs I've got on my potential list so far are:

Stars and Stripes Forever
America
This Land is Your Land (Woody Guthrie version)
Grand Old Flag
Yankee Doodle
Yankee Doodle Dandy – James Cagney?
Johnny Comes Marching Home
Dixie
Battle Hymn of the Republic
God Bless America
My Country Tis of Thee
Ballad of the Green Berets – S. Sgt. Barry Saddler

I have a feeling this is going to morph into including a bunch of the old standards. Musical cultural literacy, so to speak.

Got any suggestions?

D-Day photos

I'm late to the party on this, but some wonderful photos can be found here. I've never seen most of them before.

U.S. Soldiers march through a southern English coastal town, en route to board landing ships for the invasion of France, circa late May or early June 1944. (Army Signal Corps Collection/U.S. National Archives)

Bits and pieces

I put a couple dozen rounds through my Springfield XD on Memorial Day. This was the first time I'd fired it since late January. (Bad Nancy!)

This is the target from the first magazine at about 25 feet, fired a tad slower than a shot/second. As long as I just point and shoot, I do okay. It was when I realized that people were WATCHING, and I tried to adjust my stance and concentrate on my sights and stuff, that things started going a bit wobbly.

All 16 on the cardboard, at least.

Speaking of targets, do you know what happens when you hit the “reset” square on a reactive target really hard and for some reason it doesn’t react?  (BTW, this has been wonderful for teaching me to use those odd modern things calles "sights".)

The pellet reacts instead!

Awesome picture on page 50 of the July 2010 copy of Tactical Weapons article, “Dogs of War”.

"Highly trained bomb-sniffing dogs can skydive into action with their handlers. Muzzles are worn for protection and dogs are calm when jumping as they don't perceive height as humans do."

Cocktail napkins were part of my birthday present from my oldest sister:

I think the sense of humor is hereditary.

Sunk

When Sweet Daughter was almost three, we went crabbing off the dock at my sister’s house. Not wanting to hold her hand the whole weekend (and result in neither of us having fun), I ran over to the local marina, bought a life jacket for her and told her if she fell in and got stung by a jelly-fish, Daddy would have to pee on her where she got stung.* I got a strange look or two from her, but she was careful not to fall in. We’ve been to the beach a couple of times since then, and I just snap on the life jacket and turn her loose. She has a BLAST and loves the water.


So, while were in Charlotte last month, we stayed at a hotel with a pool. By the last morning we were there, SD figured she had things under control and wanted to take her life jacket off. I said that was fine as long as she didn't let go of the floaty-donut-ring-thing she also had. Well, her grip on that lasted all of about 45 seconds. Luckily Michael W.’s wife had spent some time with her the previous day, teaching her how to use her arms AND legs (at the same time, even!) to propel herself around. She swam underwater for about 4-5 feet until she got to the railing and came up for air. (Somehow the concept of just STANDING UP since she was in the shallow end didn't occur to her.) We three adults were starting to kick off our shoes and take off our watches, all the while jockeying for position to go in after her when she surfaced. I think she was under water for less than 10 seconds, but it seemed a whole lot longer. Before she had a chance to realize she was scared, I said "You do realize what just happened, don't you?" The annoyed look on her face said "I dropped the damn floaty ring, sank like a rock, and without any assistance from an ADULT (thank-you-very-much!) had to save my own a$$. Weren't you watching??"

I said, "You just swam underwater. By yourself." As it sunk (hahah! “sunk”!) in, she started beaming like she’d just swum the English Channel. Later on, while talking about how well she handled the situation, I casually reminded her not to try to breathe under water.

“Why not, Momma? You said there was oxygen in water!”

I am in so far over my head (wow – I wasn’t even trying for that one!), it’s not even funny. She starts swimming lessons on Monday.

*Yes, it's an old wives tale, but it did the job of keeping her from falling in the drink.

Upgraded Holster

When I decided to carry using a shoulder rig, Shorter Half got me set up with the entry-level starter set to make sure the concept worked. It did, and so he upgraded it to the nice Galco Miami Classic II rig for my birthday. I’m wearing it around the house this evening while we get it adjusted, and at one point I looked at the magazine carrier. There’s a tab at the bottom with a circle cut into it. “What the heck is that for” I asked.

“You can hang other stuff on it, like a flashlight, or handcuffs.”

::: blink, blink :::

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be using it for that”, I said, “I’m not the mall-ninja type.”

“Nope”, he said. “That’s definitely not a MILF rig.”

::: crickets chirping :::

Some time I’ll tell you about the “No analogy involving a cow and a pregnant woman can end well” story. And, yes. I was pregnant at the time. It was actually pretty darn funny.**

But no, I’m not the typical demographic to which this is being marketed. I know I never saw an episode of Miami Vice. But then, seven-foot tall (it’s a rumor, I tell you!) middle-aged moms with orangutang arms are a pretty-limited market segment. Yes, we’ve already established that I’m a freak.*

* For instance, we discovered I can functionally draw from this holster with my off-side hand. Yes, from 4 fingers below my armpit.

** Okay, while discussing why belt rigs don't work on me because of my odd proportions, he just now shouted out to no one in particular "SHE'S A SEVEN FOOT TALL SPIDER MONKEY!!"

There was actually a perplexed look on his face as I give him the "I heard that" look.

"You mean I shouldn't have said that with my outside mouth?"

Happy birthday

Today is my dad’s birthday. He’s a veteran of WWII – a bombardier in the Army Air Corp. From what I understand, he and his entire crew did their 25 missions over Germany and came home. Quite the feat. But then, this was an older crew – most of them in their late 20’s.

It’s also my birthday. Considering that my dad bought this car around 3 years earlier,

and that my siblings are 10 – 15 years older than I am, it’s a fairly safe bet that I was a “whoops!” Especially since my father accused my siblings of giving my mother an ulcer. So she went to the doctor, the rabbit died, and it was time to turn the “den” back into a nursery.

I’m as old today as my father was on the day I was born. Happy Birthday to us!

 
My dad is 94. You can do the math if you really want to.

Remembering

Today I made mourning bands. Twenty-seven of them, to be exact, because that’s all the fabric I had. They are as close to WWII Commonwealth regulations as I could get them and it was important to me that I make them on Memorial Day. They will be used next weekend at the Reading Air Show to honor Jezzy. I wasn’t able to make his memorial service, and I won’t be at Reading next weekend, but at least I was able to contribute to his send-off in a small way. From what I understand, colors in the Commonwealth camp will be flown at half-mast in Scott’s honor, and will be raised again on Sunday morning after church parade.

I’ve tried explaining the significance of Memorial Day to Sweet Daughter, telling her how those people she saw in camouflage at our last event keep us safe. How some go far away from home to keep the bad guys from coming here and hurting us. How her daddy used to be a guy in camouflage, as was his daddy, and my daddy, and my mother’s daddy.

I think some of it, at least, sunk in. Tonight at dinner she suggested we say the Pledge of Allegiance instead of Grace. “After all” she said, “it IS Memorial Day!”