I always get a little weepy at football games at the very end of the national anthem. I know it’s coming, I always tell myself “not this time!” and it always happens anyway. My brother’s in the Air Force and nothing bad has happened to him (except for the tours, I guess), but it always reminds me that he’s one of the lucky ones and so many of our soldiers aren’t.
I’ll probably always tear up when I hear “Let It Be,” from now until the end of time. My 2-year-old niece was killed in a car accident 9 years ago and that song helped me through some of it.
A long, long time ago I remember getting teary at the sight of my older brother, then a teenager (so I was what, a pre-teen? a tween? something like that) sitting next to an older woman at a nursing home, holding a hymnal and a cup of water and straw for her. He didn’t know her, but knew she needed help and was giving it. Just basic human decency at its best.
A couple of years ago I was at Fort McHenry. There is a visitor center there with a small theatre that plays a 10-minute movie, a narration of the Battle of Baltimore overlaid on a dramatic reenactment. The entire movie can be seen here. I expect most folks would find the movie a bit cheesy, but the story resonated with me: it wasn’t Hollywood, it really happened. You’ve been afraid before? Afraid of losing your job, of not making a housepayment? These were a bunch of colonists facing down the most badass navy in the world, and if they lost, everything would literally be burned to the ground - the shipyards, the textile mills, everything - and it was even likely that this would have led to the downfall of the fledgling United States. That’s some powerful fear, some big things at stake. And then came the battle, and after the smoke cleared, Mr. Key was so moved by the continued existence of Fort McHenry (as evidenced by its flag) that he ended up writing the poem that became our national anthem.
And that was just about the time that the movie started playing the Star-Spangled Banner. And it was such a stunningly beautiful pure-choral rendition that I burst into tears and was struggling not to make too much noise in a roomful of strangers. I have to guess that anyone who noticed my tears that afternoon had to wonder what the big deal was.
I’ve cried a little at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. I was staring at the actual capsule that brought men back from the moon, and some of the items that came back with it. These are monuments to the pinnacle of human technological achievement, the most distant physical extent of humanity; I’m not religious, but to me, these are something akin to religious relics, and just to see them in person was a profound experience.
Several times during 1776 finds me having to do the old “adjust the glasses” bit to cover why I have the hanky out. I’m enough of a student of history to know the play is “close but no cigar” but I’m first generation basically and raised to love this country. Doesn’t mean we were ever taught “America First” or “Love it or leave it” but more that sense of longing and hope for the future the author there got across.