Page Ideas

• Flag Page: Put a square of blue starred paper in the top left corner. Draw light pencil lines across the page where the red stripes would be. Crop your photos in squares (any size) and center them on the pencil lines.
  Where the pencil line is take the red straight design line and cut it to fill in the spaces between the photos.
• Use the white firecracker die-cut on a black page and a red fire cracker die-cut on a white page. Use the red, white and blue design lines across the top and bottom of both the black and white pages.
• Take a picture of your family or friends with the fireworks in the background.
• Have your family dress in red, white and blue for Fourth of July photos. Try color copying one of the outfits to use as background on the page.
• Take profile shots of people looking at fireworks. Mount these on the page and draw fireworks beside them like they are looking at them.
• Take photos of each child sitting or standing and wearing red, white and blue. Crop the photo in a star shape but with the legs hanging off like he/she is sitting on a star. Or silhouette the photos and mount them on top of red and blue stars (like they are standing/sitting on them). Take photos of children in different positions - such as doing a cartwheel.
• Border Idea: Cut straight narrow strips of cranberry gingham paper. Cut even narrow strips of deep blue star paper using the wavy borderline as a pattern. Wrap the blue strips around the gingham strips. You will have to experiment a little to get the width of papers that give the effect you want.
• Use a flag sticker for the 'f' in Fourth of July.
• Cut letter shapes from fireworks photos to spell out 'fourth of July'

A Rocket In My Pocket

I've got a rocket
In my pocket;
I cannot stop to play.
Away it goes!
I've burned my toes
It's Independence Day.

Fourth of July Verses

These verses are from the Perpetual Sentiments Album but can be used on 4th of July pages. The second is for people who have a family member with a July birthday. Stacy Kocur wrote it for me because my daughter wanted to mention her children in her Perpetual Album. It is a good example of how to personalize a poem to fit a situation.

God Bless America

(Irving Berlin)

from O Beautiful for Spacious Skies

from My Country, 'Tis of Thee

My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside,
Let freedom ring!

A Day to Remember

(used with permission of the author, Michael Marks
While Independence Day is a celebration of the patriotism and sacrifice that first gave birth to the United States of America in 1776 it remains a day for all Americans to remember the ongoing sacrifices of our Armed Forces personnel in their defense of our nation.)

In crimson hue the missiles flew and cracked the sky asunder,
while mortars tolled, explosions rolled and shook the ground like thunder.
Yet in the midst of rockets roar a figure stood alone,
a grizzled sergeant gazing on the field with eyes of stone.

He'd heard before the mortars roar in jungles far away,
and left his blood there in the mud where fallen comrades lay.
And when it seemed the gates of hell itself had opened wide,
when every fiber of his being had screamed to run and hide,
he held his ground and duty bound to country and to Corps
he faced the final sacrifice as many had before.

A sudden movement in the night broke through his reverie,
to drive away old memories he'd just as soon not see.
On trembling legs a breathless figure dashed across the street
collapsing on the ground before the grizzled sergeant's feet.

"Oh Grandpa did you see 'em?" asked the boy with shining eyes,
"the fireworks are really cool, they almost fill the skies!"
The sergeant smiled and hugged the boy, a moment most sublime.
"You bet I did" the sergeant said, "I've seen them many times."

Then with a kiss on Grandpa's cheek he jumped and dashed away.
Returning to the magic that was Independence Day.
And with a gentle sigh the sergeant, flanked on either side
by sons and daughters, hugged his wife, now thirty years his bride.

He raised his eyes to heaven where the flag now proudly flew,
majestic in her billowing of red and white and blue.
With hand upon his brow he stood once more in proud salute,
His love for God and Country ever strong and absolute.

And thinking back upon those nights so full of pain and fear,
when locked in mortal combat he was sure his end was near;
He said a prayer of thanks that God had seen to pull them through
And given him a life that those who'd fallen never knew.

With humble heart he took his place with patriots of lore,
And shared an oath with every soldier that had gone before.
Should 'eer the call arise to stand for nation, God and friends...
He knew from deep within his heart he'd do it all again.

The flag...the symbol of the hopes of man. This cloth of dreams for freedom, justice and opportunity. Its stars are like beacons guiding us through the shoals of adversity. It's red stripes like wounds of struggles. The good in it cannot be had for nothing...like any garden, it must be tended...like any loved one, it must be held. Hold this flag high and keep it's promise bright, for in it lies the best hope for all of us. (Nort Walker)

The Flag

I love the flag.
It flies so high
It almost seems
To touch the sky.
Red, white and blue
Its colors are;
For every state
There is a star.

Red, White and Blue

Red, white, and blue, the flag flies free,
In the winds of liberty.
Children in its shadow know
Their flag protects them as they grow.

Pledge of Allegiance

At the end of the 19th century, millions of immigrants poured into a country beset with social unrest. Many people believed America needed some symbol to tie the nation's peoples together. The first widely used pledge of allegiance was written by a Colonel Balch of New York. It was a simple pledge of fealty and devotion: "I give my heart and my hand to my country -- one country, one language, one flag."

In 1892, Francis Bellamy, an ordained Baptist minister who had been booted out of his Boston church because of his fiery socialist sermons, composed a pledge that expressed loyalty not only to a nation but to an idea: "Liberty and justice for all." There is more information on the history of the Pledge of Allegiance on Alternet.

Proposed new Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora, fauna and human life that it supports, one planet indivisible, with safe air, water & soil, economic justice, equal rights and peace for all.

That Ragged Old Flag

(Johnny Cash)

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench, an old man was sittin' there.
I said, "Your court house is kinda run down,
He said, "No, it will do for our little town".
I said "your old flag pole kinda leaned a little bit,
And that's a ragged old flag you got hanging on it".

He said "have a seat", so I sat down,
He said, "is this your first visit to our little town"

I said, "I think it is"
He said "I don't like to brag, but we're kinda proud of
"That Ragged Old Flag"
"You see, we got a little hole in that flag there,
When Washington took it across the Delaware.
It got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it,
writing "Oh Say Can You See"
It got a rip in New Orleans, with Packingham and Jackson
tugging at its seams.
It almost fell at the Alamo beside the Texas flag,
But she waved on though.

It got cut with a sword in Chancellorsville,
Got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on
"That Ragged Old Flag"

On Flanders Field in World War I,
She took a bad hit from a Bertha Gun,
She turned blood red in World War II
She hung limp and low by the time that one was through,
She was in Korea, Vietnam, She went where she was sent
by her Uncle Sam.

The Native Americans, The Black, Yellow and White
All shed red blood for the Stars and Stripes.
And here in her own good land,
She's been abused, burned, dishonored, denied and refused,
And the very government for which she stands
Has been scandalized throughout out the land.
And she's getting thread bare, and she's wearing kinda thin,
But she's in pretty good shape, for the shape she's in.
Cause she's been through the fire before
and she can take a whole lot more.

So we raise her up every morning
And we bring her down slow every night,
We don't let her touch the ground,
And we fold her up right.
On second thought
I do like to brag
Cause I'm mighty proud of
"That Ragged Old Flag"

Old Glory

from Stars and Stripes Forever

Let martial note in triumph float
And liberty extend its mighty hand
A flag appears 'mid thunderous cheers,
The banner of the Western land.
The emblem of the brave and true
Its folds protect no tyrant crew;
The red and white and starry blue
Is freedom's shield and hope.
Other nations may deem their flags the best
And cheer them with fervid elation
But the flag of the North and South and West
Is the flag of flags, the flag of Freedom's nation.

Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.

Let eagle shriek from lofty peak
The never-ending watchword of our land;
Let summer breeze waft through the trees
The echo of the chorus grand.
Sing out for liberty and light,
Sing out for freedom and the right.
Sing out for Union and its might,
O patriotic sons.

from The Star-Spangled Banner

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Some info about the History of Flag Day.