Originally published here on July 5th, 2013. While you're over there on Jay's Bon Mots, why not scroll down and read some of my dad's posts?
Our Fourth of July Tradition
It was a Fourth of July tradition in our house for my dad to put on a record of Sousa marches and let the neighborhood know that patriotism was alive and well in the Lanin household, so yesterday we did exactly that.
We listened to the “Washington Post March,” “Hands Across the Sea,” “The Invicible Eagle,” “Semper Fidelis.” We listened to “The Liberty Bell,” and I told him that even if I live to be 106, I will never not cheerfully associate that march with Monty Python.
But of course our favorite is “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” He used to air-piccolo to the feature piccolo. (You know the one I mean.) And over the softer third theme, what’s known as the trio, he taught us to sing a silly song, which I will now teach you:
So be kind to your web-footed friends,
For a duck may be somebody’s mother.
They live in the fields and the swamp [here pronounced like ‘stamp’]
Where it’s very cold and damp.
And you may think that this is the end.
Well it is.
I sang that to him yesterday and he laughed like hell.