The Parentals

Today is Flag Day and my parents are celebrating their anniversary!!

So happy anniversary Mom and Dad. By my calculations #39!!

Love you two. And as a treat, I have something for both of you:


Ode to Two Women

O to that young widow who two centuries ago
Met with Washington and his committee of three
In May of the year Seventeen seventy-six.
For with one snip of the scissors, a six-pointed star
Turned to five, and our country’s flag was a Go.

It was a time of grief, turmoil and gloom,
For the Philadelphia upholsterer Betsy Ross.
Her husband, John, died from wounds of the fight.
And she struggled through hard times
As the beginnings of the war did loom.

The war raged on, and Betsy continued to sew,
And Paine wrote of Common Sense.
Franklin’s thirteen-part snake and “Don’t Tread on Me”
Expressed a nation’s desire to be free,
And the Declaration was written, we all know.

Loyalists and patriots tugged at the controls,
With blood being shed on both sides.
At Valley Forge Washington fought on
Inspired by the series The Crisis
And Paine’s words of “times trying men’s souls.”

To Betsy Ross should credit be
With the sewing of our first flag.
For amid the tumult and strife
She meticulously Old Glory created
To unfurl 'cross this land of the free.

It took the Continental Congress ’til June 14, 1777,
A year from meeting George et al in her shop,
To adopt the flag that Betsy had sewn.
It had red and white stripes and white stars on blue
To make America a new constellation in the heavens.

Carried first in September 1777 at the Battle of Brandywine,
Our flag has represented freedom throughout the world
And long may her ideals survive.
She withstood the attack at Fort McHenry in 1814,
Leaving Francis Scott Key to pen his famous lines.

And through the years, people extolled the day
That Betsy’s flag had become our nation’s.
But it took ole “Give ’em Hell, Harry, to make June 14
Official as the day the country pays homage to the flag.
And, since 1949 on June 14, Old Glory has her own day.

I’d be remiss if that was the end of our tale,
But you’re here today to share a special celebration.
For another brave woman, in ’69, agreed to change her life,
As she muttered in tears, “I do,” she committed herself to a quest.
Now, on Flag Day, you see, thirty-nine years on by did sail.

We have lived under the West’s “spacious skies,”
Have helped harvest the “waves of amber grain”
Have peered across Montana’s “purple mountains,”
And lived on North Dakota’s “fruited plain.”
America‘s “shining seas” have brought us ahs and sighs.

So with twilight in my eyes I still flash that gleam,
As I once did counting stars under the wild Big Sky,
While bursting with dreams to stave off the fears.
And, Anna, she came along, gallantly riding each little wave,
So, at dawn’s early light our love burst into a bright sunbeam.


Love you guys!!

---Written by my dad to my mom

---published by 7timechampion Inc