Monotone bugs me. Like nails on a chalkboard or fillings on tin foil, I can’t handle the idea that tradition has to be recited with one, rambling tone.
I remember growing up with the occasional Remembrance Day assembly in class, depending if the 11th fell upon a school day or weekend there was a great variety in the level of participation required of us. The day would usually go something like this:
We would all shuffle into the gymnasium with our bright red (and green…at the time) poppies stabbed into our shirts and someone would fire-up the coal-electric overhead projector with a sheet containing the lyrics to “Flanders Fields” (I swear every Canadian child has heard of John McCrae) and as one semi-mumbling blob, would recite the words, then try our best not to incur the wrath of our teachers by standing still and silent for a minute once the 11th occurred.
It would be silly to assume we didn’t understand the gravitas of the day, but it always bugged me that, for the most part, it was more about poppies and poems, silence and sombreness, reciting and reading…but very few of us had anything to remember. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted under Manifestoes