This weekend I went to Fort McHenry, the birthplace of our national anthem. It's just outside of Baltimore, MD, about an hour from where I live. What a cool place too. I went with Dan and his roommate Steve. They'd both been before, but this was my first time. (I'm having a lot of firsts out here!) We started out in a visitor's center reading about the War of 1812, the writing of the anthem, its rise to popularity, and the uses of the fort during other major wars. We watched about a 20 minute video that was specifically about Francis Scott Key and the circumstances in which he wrote the famous poem which was later put to music. (As an interesting note, the tune was a well-known drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven." Anacreon was an old Greek poet famous for writing drinking songs. So there you have it. A drinking song about a guy who wrote drinking songs.) But the coolest part of the presentation was that when the video ended, they started playing the anthem and raised the movie screen to expose a huge window that looked out to the fort with a huge American flag flying. How can you help but feel patriotic!
We got to walk around Fort McHenry and see the cannons, quarters, etc. It was cool to put together what all of the parts of the song mean. (What exactly are the ramparts? I learned they are the walls of the fort.) I feel like visiting historic sites like this puts into perspective what has been done to create and preserve this country. I'm sure I was probably taught all about this somewhere along the lines of my education, but I think I'll actually remember a lot more about it this time.
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