The Liberty Bell, a tattered flag and Johnny Cash

Earlier this year, a disheveled wild-eyed man yelling “God lives on!” was seized by National Park Service police in Philadelphia after he had celebrated the Fourth of July holiday early by whaling away on the Liberty Bell with a hammer, denting and chipping the lip of the cherished 250-year-old symbol of freedom.

The man, who described himself to police as a “wanderer” from Nebraska, was relieved of his hammer and carted off by the cops to face charges of damaging U.S. property and causing historical damage. If convicted, he could get up to seven years in prison, which would be seven years more than the over-zealous patriots who originally damaged the government property got back in the early days of the republic, when the bell was tolled at the slightest excuse to celebrate.

The colonial stalwarts tolled it when Ben Franklin set off for England, hat in hand, with a list of grievances from the colonies that was longer than a Bill Clinton State of the Union speech. They tolled it when King George ascended to the throne in 1761, although it beats me as to why, and they tolled it to promote the Sugar and Stamp Acts of 1764-65. They tolled it for this and they tolled it for that, until the good burghers of Philadelphia got so fed up with all of the noise and carrying-on that they petitioned the city to take a break. Authorities refused, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Come Wednesday, the Liberty Bell – dented and chipped lip and various other indignities notwithstanding – will be “rung” (symbolically tapped, sans hammer) in unison with thousands of other bells throughout the nation to mark the 225th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

(It actually was July 8, 1776, before the Liberty Bell would ring out from the tower of Independence Hall to summon the citizenry to hear Col. John Nixon give the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. But four days off the mark is close enough for government work, I say. In any case, our forebears were able to get their holiday bell-ringing act together in time for July 4, 1777 and we have lived happily ever since.)

The Liberty Bell tolls no more because the bell ringers of yore were so fired up in their duties they cracked it something fierce, rendering it mute for the ages. Historians disagree as to when the first crack appeared in the national icon. But there is agreement that the final expansion of the crack which made the bell unringable occurred on George Washington’s birthday in 1846. Thus, should you visit Philly and find that the Liberty Bell is not all it’s cracked up to be, blame George.

Be that as it may, Independence Day approaches and the time is at hand to unfurl Old Glory from the standard on the garage. Which means it’s also time to dust off once again the old Johnny Cash tribute titled “Ragged Old Flag”which is pretty hard to beat as a Fourth of July mood-setter. In the recitation, a young whippersnapper tweaks a bunch of aging war veterans about the ragged condition of their flag hanging from a flagpole in the town square. One old boy promptly sets the kid straight with a poetic history lesson:

“You see, we got a little hole in that flag there … when Washington took it across the Delaware… And it got powder burns the night that Francis Scott Key … sat watching it, writing `Say, Can You See’ … And it got a bad rip in New Orleans, with Packingham and Jackson tugging at its seams… And it almost fell at the Alamo, beside the Texas flag; but she hung on, though… She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville … and she got cut again at Shiloh Hill… There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard and Bragg … and the southwind blew hard on that old flag.

“On Flanders Field in World War One she got a big hole from a Bertha gun… She turned blood-red in World War Two… She hung limp and low a time or two… She was in Korea, in Vietnam… She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam… She waved from ships upon the briny foam…. And now they’ve about quit waving her back here at home…”

The narrator laments the abuse and disrespect the flag has been subjected to of late. Still, he remains optimistic. “Although she’s getting threadbare and she’s wearing thin, she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in… Though she’s been through the fire before, I believe she can take a whole lot more.”

On this Independence Day, the old man’s words offer us food for thought.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.