Being the unabashed patriot that I am, I refuse to take anything about our country so seriously as to not be capable of mocking it, especially when it’s so richly deserved. I’ve been holding on to this specific cartoon of his for at least 25 years, as it (somewhat) mirrors my attitude toward reciting the pledge. As a member of one of my local Rotary Clubs for over four years, I recited the pledge quite frequently, at the beginning of each weekly meeting. My Democratic Club recites the pledge at the beginning of every monthly meeting. I no longer speak those words

I am only willing to pledge my allegiance to the human race; not to a particular nationality that I happen to be a part of though, to be clear, if we are attacked I will do everything in my power to defend my friends, my family, and my fellow citizens. I consider myself a patriot, but not a jingoistic one and I prefer we move toward seeing—and dealing with—the world as if we are all fellow citizens of this one planet. The only home we currently have, and most likely the only one we’ll have for centuries to come.

Note there is no date on the cartoon above. I was guessing it was sometime in the 90s that I cut this out and saved it (I just scanned it, after all these years.) I decided to search a little and see what else I could find, including a copy of the original in a Google image search. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this version, below. I found another one that looked slightly different, but it was severely cropped and difficult to figure out.

OK – So I found another one, also dated, which is two years younger than the one above. Of the two above, I have no idea which one was published first, but I’m going to suspect it was the first one I put up there. This was around the time I had started working at Rockwell International’s Rocketdyne Division and I needed to keep myself grounded in what I consider to be reality, meaning I didn’t want to fall into the mental trap of supporting what my government does blindly. I’ve always questioned authority, but working at Rocketdyne was a whole new experience for me. Prior to that job, I had always worked in small—very small—business, most of them employing no more than four or five people.

Somewhere, and I have no idea where that somewhere might be, there is a cartoon where one of the characters begins the pledge saying “I play the legions.” I remember this very clearly, but I don’t for the life of me remember where I encountered it. Having posted this, perhaps I will conduct a thorough search to see if I can find it. I’m not holding out much hope, but one never knows.

PS – In searching for a little more info, I came across an interesting column from 1988 in the Orlando Sentinel, entitled “‘I LED THE PIGEONS TO THE FLAG . . . ‘ BACK TO SCHOOL AND A GARBLED PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE,” which has some pretty interesting tidbits that kids have thrown into their recitation, though in their case it’s quite unwittingly. Matt was taking liberties wittingly, I’m sure.