I believe it is the customary practice.

I was the only student that said the Pledge of Allegiance. For a whole year. In my 10th grade homeroom at McDowell Intermediate High School in Millcreek, PA. Me and my homeroom teacher.

Intermediate is a huge school, new and modern (at the time), arranged internally like a beehive; many of the rooms have no windows, only smooth modular walls that resemble those in the space ship from 2001: A Space Odyssey (white, bright, sterile).

My homeroom was among those with no windows, and there were only a handful of us in it. There were lots of kids at Intermediate with last names that began with C; I don't know where they all were, but they weren't with me.

Each morning, after making the announcements over the loudspeaker, the principal asked us to say the Pledge, but he didn't actually say it himself; he left that to the homeroom teachers.

Now the first time we said the Pledge - the first day of school - I put my right hand over my heart and started, along with my homeroom teacher, expecting everyone else to do the same, but they didn't. There were a couple mumbling attempts, but that was it. The next day, not even that. Just the sound of me and my homeroom teacher.

Every day for a year I said the pledge at normal volume. The homeroom teacher never asked the class to speak up, never even suggested with his eyes or his posture that there was something irregular about it all, never looked at me or talked to me or otherwise acknowledged that he and I were going it alone.

I don't know if he cared or not. If he did, he didn't show it.

Even then, I was developing a sense of rightness that transcended that of my peers. Not patriotism. But a sensibility regarding order and our place within it, duty and respect, those sorts of things.


There's a story told of Barbara Streisand meeting Elizabeth II, the Queen of England, and refusing to bow and kiss her hand. When Streisand indignantly asked the Queen why she should behave this way, the Queen responded simply, "I believe it is the customary practice."

That's it. Customary. It's not a law, it's not a commandment, no one's going to Hell for not doing it. For crying out loud, it's just what you do, and very often that is all there is to being a considerate human being.

Started: 2012-08-31