18 Murder Or Be Murdered; 19 Leave me be

Murder Or Be Murdered

Don't be a murder like me

For you shall see
That you will pay a fee
Not a fee of money
For money is funny
But a fee of pain
For your blood will drain
Murder or be murdered
Is murder the lesser of the two evils?

Lauren Kerr

 

 

Leave me be

Sorrow, sorrow why must you take me so
Why have you left me in such a big hole
Sorrow, sorrow when will you leave my soul
And let me finally breath so
There is nowhere to go
If you keep beating on my heart so
Sorrow, sorrow its your time to go
Let your heart leave from my soul

Dillon Crawford

 

 

16 Warning; 17 murderer

Warning

When my mind dragged into the darkness
My feet suddenly stop and I become bored
It’s a warning, my heart could feel
Before my life is taken away from me
I should run and find the light again

When my soul swift into despair

My clock suddenly frozen and I become lonely
It’s a warning, my body starts shaking
Before my faith fly away from me
I should turn and catch my wings of hope

When my love tainted by deceit

My eyes suddenly blocked and I become ignorant
It’s a warning, my instinct is calling
Before my hate conquers me
I should hold on and break the storm

When I’m lost in clown world

My fear suddenly clear and I want to scream
It’s a warning, my truth is here
Before the mist thickening
I should be strong and find my reason to dream

Maria Sudibyo

 

This puts me in mind of a whirlpool sucking the author down. What an odd one for Daniel to choose. Or is it?

 

 

murderer

I murder in the morning

I murder late at night

l murder when the time is right

l murder my family

l murder my friends

l murder anyone who gets in my way

l kill you with a gun

l kill you with a knife

l kill you with poison

l'm a murderer

l'm going to kill you now

don't scream

don't yell

don't fight me

just sit there and

DIE

DIE

DIE

DIE! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Rebecca Succes

 

For this one, Daniel only had the first DIE; not sure why. I think he liked to explore why people did things. This is a good one for that.

14 Murder Me; 15 Terrorism

Murder Me

Kill me,

Jump Me,
End my life like I care,
Take this gun and shoot me,
Don’t look,
Don’t Stop,
Just murder me,
Just end my life tonight,
As I no longer care,
Or dare to speak of his name,
Or cry out his name in vein,
Murder me,
Murder me here,
Just end it now,
End my suffering,
Make it go away,
Just help me from feeling this rage inside of me bursting to get out,
Please kill me here,
Take this knife and murder me.

Jennifer Rondeau

 

Daniel did not want to go to California. I know that he wanted to see people, but he did not want to go. Did he have any idea of what was going to happen? Was he waiting to go home? More questions I would love to ask him.

 

 

Terrorism

merciless slaughter,

betrayal of peaceful life,
way to cruelty

MBJ Pancras

 

Daniel did talk about going into the military after school because he really didn’t know what he wanted to do when he ‘grew up.’ The fact that he was three and a half on 9/11 means he pretty much grew up with the aftermath of that day. He had  a pretty low opinion of people who would do something like that and joining the military was one way he could combat them.

A comment about the picture, as Laura mentioned, Daniel was good at drawing weapons of mass destruction. However, put a person in that helicopter, and it would be a stick figure.

Morning Walks

The canine girls, Trista and Scooter, and I usually take a walk in the morning. It's a good way to stretch and get things going and it's a good time to go and visit Daniel's grave. We start out the front and go around the garden. If we are going to visit Daniel's grave, we usually walk down the hill between the fruit trees and the mess of trees on the edge of the Christmas tree patch and then along the 'road' to the monkey bridge and grave. If the ground is dry, we water the plants, especially the rhododendrons because we want them to grow and be happy. Once we are done watering and/or talking to Daniel, we head up the hill through the Christmas trees and then along the edge of the field over to the edge where the currants are and then by the wood pile mess to the driveway and then inside. We never know what we might see. Last week we saw some turkeys.

I don't know if these are the turkeys we saw. They might be. This (and the other turkey pictures, were taken by Joanna on August 21).

If these are the ones we saw, there should be some young ones somewhere.

Curious creatures, they are. Daniel caught a baby turkey two summers ago. We put it in with the chicks at first and it wasn't doing well so we brought it in the house in a box. It was a pretty little thing with big, round eyes. I didn't survive the night though which was very sad.

These pictures were taken two mornings ago on August 28.

There are lots of trees. This is a big one that is just cool. I sometimes think about the things it has seen.

We could see the sun coming up through the trees.

Some purple flowers amongst the yellow. Purple always makes me think of my Aunt Julie.

The new rhododendrons. There is a little one over by the corner of Daniel's grave. The one Paul gave me for Mother's Day is inside the rock border, the new one, which is supposed to have red flowers, is on the outside. In the foreground, you can see the largest of the new ones and in the middle of the right side of the picture, you can see another although it blends in with one of the three I planted previously.

The rope is from the rope bridge. This is where I fill up the bucket you can see in the above picture to fill the watering can, also visible in the above picture.

The rising sun and a rock wall just on the other side of the stream from Daniel's grave.

Daniel's grave as it currently looks. This was taken from the north west corner and is where I like to sit when I have a few minutes. I really like this picture.

The view from the south west corner. If you know what to look for, you can see the rhododendrons. They should have some flowers for us in the spring.

Many spider webs on this tree. When I see a spider web, I think of my Aunt Debby.

An up close of one of the webs.

Our walks are just the beginning of usually a busy day but they are a nice beginning. 

13 Death (The City in the Sea)

The City in the Sea

LO! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down

On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently,
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free:
Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls,
Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls,
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers,
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathëd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves

Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye,—
Not the gayly-jewelled dead,
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas,
Along that wilderness of glass;
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea;
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene!

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave—there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide;
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven!
The waves have now a redder glow,
The hours are breathing faint and low;
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Edgar Allen Poe

 This is such a dark poem. I suppose I ought not to be surprised considering who wrote it. But for Daniel to have chosen it, that’s something to think about. Daniel did not get the title for his project and he combined the second and third stanzas.

11 The City Dead-House; 12 One Inch Tall

The City Dead-House

by: Walt Whitman

By the City Dead-House, by the gate,

As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause—for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought;
Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d—it lies on the damp brick pavement;
The divine woman, her body—I see the Body—I look on it alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty—all else I notice not;
For stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors morbific impress me;
But the house alone—that wondrous house—that delicate fair house—that ruin!
That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built!
Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted—or all the old high-spired cathedrals;
That little house alone, more than them all—poor, desperate house!
Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul!
Unclaim’d, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips;
Take one tear, dropt aside as I go, for thought of you,
Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crush’d!
House of life—erewhile talking and laughing—but ah, poor house! dead, even then;
Months, years, an echoing, garnish’d house—but dead, dead, dead.

‘That wondrous house.’ Isn’t it though?

 

 

Shel Silverstein

One Inch Tall

If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school.

The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
A crumb of cake would be a feast
And last you seven days at least,
A flea would be a frightening beast
If you were one inch tall.

If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door,

And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
A bit of fluff would be your bed,
You'd swing upon a spider's thread,
And wear a thimble on your head
If you were one inch tall.

You'd surf across the kitchen sink upon a stick of gum.

You couldn't hug your mama, you'd just have to hug her thumb.
You'd run from people's feet in fright,
To move a pen would take all night,
(This poem took fourteen years to write--
'Cause I'm just one inch tall).

9 Death sets a thing; 10 dying is fine) but Death

Death sets a thing

Emily Dickinson

Death sets a thing significant

The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly

To ponder little workmanships

In crayon or in wool,
With "This was last her fingers did,"
Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy,

The stitches stopped themselves,
And then 't was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.
A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,--
At rest his fingers are.

Now, when I read, I read not,

For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs.

Oh my. This one he separated the second and third stanzas and I wonder if the source I found might have been wrong. That is minor, however, compared to the content of this poem. It is so true. Everything Daniel did, everything he left behind, is now precious, our only physical link to the boy we miss.

dying is fine) but Death

by e.e. cummings

dying is fine)but Death

?o

baby
i

wouldn't like

Death if Death

were
good:for

when(instead of stopping to think)you

begin to feel of it,dying
's miraculous
why?be

cause dying is

perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but

Death

is strictly

scientific
& artificial &

evil & legal)

we thank thee

god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death

Interesting subject. He picked quite a few dealing with this. Although in the eternal scheme of things it probably is not of great importance, I would like to ask him why. Was he just looking for poems and using the first one he found that fit for each requirement? Was any conscious thought going into the selection other than making sure they fit the requirements? I wish I knew.

7 KABOOM!; 8 Simile

KABOOM!

Kaboom!

Ka-blast
Way in the past
the miners mined for ore.
They searched for copper, iron and salt,
for that and much, much more.

Kaboom!

The bite
of dynamite
cut deep inside the earth.
The charge explodes revealing lodes
of minerals of worth.

Kaboom!
The dust,
the air so mussed
went swirling through the sky.
It was a sight, the dynamite
that made the mountains fly.

Kaboom!

The earth
was filled with mirth
so tickled by the boom.
The miner's pleasure,
each newfound treasure
that followed each

Kaboom!

by Denise Rodgers

 

On this one, Daniel left of the entire last stanza. I don’t know if he just missed it in copying and pasting or if his source didn’t include it or what. I can see him actually liking this poem—he was interested in such things as bombs and explosions.

 

 

Similie

What could possibly

have been said
to make us like two fighting
dogs
who circle each other
warily
tails down
ears pricked
sniffing
and watchful
for the other to make
the first move

I could find this poem nowhere online. I looked up ‘similie’ and ‘simile,’ the first line and almost the entire poem. Even when I used the name Daniel included in his Literary Terms, nothing came up that would indicate a poem of any kind.

5 Eye Rhyme; 6 A Question

'EYE RHYME'

a poem never to be read aloud

When i say to the aspiring sublime:

"A waste of words is an abomination,
Publish or Perish is not your situation,"
i alliterate and i rime.

Yet, where the sounds don't keep chime,

the verse writers at home and in their offices
sadly confuse visual and aural devices
to concoct an excuse for their cheap 'rhyme'.

Letters only spelled the same on paper

are false notes that jar the genuine ear,
skilless discords the true listener won't bear,
where real rime is to be beauty's shaper.

Love, over and above,

is the term literally abused most.
Many a reader will suddenly get lost,
when it's paired with dove instead of dove.

Good poetry needs no rime, like wine no bush.

The poor 'eye-rhyming' rimester
who submits a piece each trimester
i therefore tell (for i'd rather not push):

"Please, don't publish and don't perish,

forget your fears,
first wait nine years."
It's an ancient advice we ought to cherish.

Vincent van Mechelen

An intersting poem.

Robert Frost -  A Question

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.

 

Nothing to note here but I do wonder at this selection. Personally, I think Robert Frost may have been on to something here looking at life from an eternal perspective. If what I have come to believe is correct, before we were born to this mortal existence, we wanted to come down in the worst way and birth into this is definitely worth all the scars we may end up with.

3 Dewdrops Dancing Down Daisies; 4 Shall I Compare Thee To A Summers' Day

Dewdrops Dancing Down Daisies

By Paul McCann

Don't delay dawns disarming display.

Dusk demands daylight.
Dewdrops dwell, delicately drawing dazzling delight.
Dewdrops dilute daisies domain.
Distinguished debutantes.
Diamonds defray delivered daylights distilled daisy dance.

Not much to comment on here in the way of differences. This poem is of interest because I know that Daniel did not like daisies. He was terribly allergic to them; they turned his eyes red and the whites of his eyes would swell as well as his face around his eyes. He would hack them down whenever he found a them growing near the house or yard.

Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day

Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Again, not much to note in the way of differences here. Again, it is interesting that he chose this one as I know he really wasn’t a summer person. He would much rather have snow days during the winter and have school extend into the summer than have a longer summer.

Poems

Poems
By: Daniel Davis
Period D
May [17] 11
Comments by Pamela Flint, August, 2012.

This is a collection of poems Daniel made for an assignment in 7^th Grade. He was not fond of poetry and did not want and did not enjoy doing this assignment. He did ask some questions while he was working on it but usually insisted that the work needed to be done at school so for the most part, it was. I do know that most of the poems he did not write, he found online; most of those he copied and pasted. I looked up each of the poems he used mainly to make sure he’d gotten the spelling and punctuation right according to the poet (we all know how they are!). Any differences, I’ve noted after each poem. It is interesting to me the poems he used.

Originally, I was going to post Daniel's poems in their entirety. However, that has turned into a project that is too unwieldy for me at the moment so I've decided to post it in parts. The first one will be the Title Page, Contents, and Literary Terms. Pretty exciting, I know, but manageable. Each post following will contain one or two poems; also manageable.

Table of Contents

1. Literary Terms

2. Literary Terms

3. Dewdrops dancing Down Daisies

4. Shall I Compare Thee To A Summers’ Day

5. Eye Rhyme

6. A Question

7. KABOOM!

8. Simile

9. Death sets a thing

10. dying is fine) but Death

11. The City Dead-House

12. One Inch Tall

13. Death

14. Murder Me

15. Terrorism

16. Warning

17. murderer

18. Murder Or Be Murdered

19. Leave me be

20. The Fly

21. A Poison Tree

22. A Coffin-is a small Domain

23. It can’t be

24. The Tiger

25. I Do Not Know

26. My Other Poem

Literary Terms 

1. Rhyme—A Question / Robert Frost

A voice said, Look me in the stars

And tell me truly, men of earth,

If all the soul-and-body scars

Were not too much to pay for birth.

2. Stanza—A Question / Robert Frost

A voice said, Look me in the stars

And tell me truly, men of earth,

If all the soul-and-body scars

Were not too much to pay for birth.

3. Simile—Simile / Lexi Balla

What could possibly

Have been said

To make us like two fighting

Dogs.

4. Metaphor—Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day / William Shakespeare

Shall I compare the to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all to short a date.

5. Onomatopoeia—KABOOM! / Denise Rogers

Kaboom!

Ka-blast

Way in the past

The miners mined for ore.

They searched for copper, iron, and salt,

For that and much, much more.

6. Alliteration—Dewdrops dancing Down Daisies / Paul McCann

Don’t delay dawns disarming display.

Dusk demands daylight. 

7. Personification—KABOOM! / Denise Rogers

It was a sight, the dynamite

That made the mountains fly. 

8. Eye rhyme—EYE RHYME / Vincent van Mechelen

A waste of words is an abomination,

Publish or Perish is not your situation 

9. Dialect—Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day / William Shakespeare

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wad’rest in his shade

Fear, Hopes and Expectations

I don’t remember what my fear, hopes, and expectations were so I guess they all worked out for me very well. Also whatever I did write down was just a bunch of crap because I only wrote to stay out of trouble.

no date

This is so typically Daniel!

Thoughts on Daniel

I have been thinking. I just looked at something with a picture of Laura, Joanna, Daniel, Amena, Cedric, Seth and Joseph and was thinking about some of the things that some of the parents said at the Carriage House meetings in Worcester about the second year being harder than the first. Granted, we are only nineteen days into our second year, so I may not have a complete grasp on how this second year is going to be. I can tell about how I feel and I can talk about ideas that I have.

The time that we were in Sioux Falls I am not sure that I gave much thought to anything other than acknowledging Daniel would not be going home with us in the sense that we normally think of as ‘going home.’ Daniel would not be flying on a plane or riding in a van in order to join us physically in Hubbardston, MA. His body remained in Sioux Falls longer than the rest of us did but was finally returned and is now at rest down by the creek that runs approximately along the property line. I didn’t think much, really, about anything beyond getting through another day and getting us all home even though my biggest challenge was getting through another day while Paul and others worked on the getting us home part. Once we were home, other than the obvious changes that had been wrought by people cleaning and getting ready to turn the back room into a recovery room, it was as though Daniel were always just in another room. His presence was here always.

That has changed.

The thoughts and ideas and beliefs I am going to share now are mine. I am not sharing them to challenge your thoughts, ideas and beliefs; I am not sharing them to convert your ways to mine. You can disagree with me if you’d like as long as you do not try to challenge my beliefs or try to convert me to yours. I share because I believe there is value in sharing. And just a little note, I happen to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Many, maybe even most, of my beliefs are ones taught by the church but some of them, while I don’t believe conflict with the Church, are ones I have come upon via other venues (prayer, meditation, reading, and the like).

I believe that we existed before we were born into this life and I believe that we continue to exist after this life. Our birth into mortal existence is but a death from a former existence and our death from mortal existence is but a birth into another existence. I believe that our spirits are separate entities from our mortal bodies and that they enter our bodies sometime between conception and birth and leave them at death. I also believe that at some point, our spirits will be reunited with our bodies. I believe that in the spirit existence before this reuniting there is work to be done. I believe that there are two classes of spirits in that place. Simply put, I believe that those who lived good lives and were good people and did the best they could to make good choices are one class and those who made poor choices and were not good people and gave up are the other class. I believe that those who did well act as our guardian angles, teach those who did not as well, and do what they can to influence those of us still in our mortal plane to make good choices. I believe that there is much for them to do and that they are not still, that they are not in a paradise where they need do nothing but rest.

Because I have the belief system that I do, I feel that Daniel is among those who are busy doing good. I think that he has been with us for much of the last year. I think he has sat at the foot of each of our beds. I think he was there for us in the hospitals in Sioux Falls. I think he influenced the doctors who worked on his brothers and sisters. I think he managed to be with Joanna and comfort her while she was still in California and Alisha when she was still in Idaho. I know that he has appeared to some of us in dreams. I think that his time for comforting us is nearing an end. I do believe that he will yet be able to be with us upon occasion but I think the time has come for him to move on. I think this is why I no longer feel that he could be upstairs reading.

Just some of my thoughts. I hope that in sharing them, they might do some good.

The Overnight

I did enjoy the overnight. It was fun and my favorite part was the homeroom Olympics. I liked the Olympics the most because even if you were not doing any of the games you could still talk to your friends that were in your home room. What I didn’t like about the Olympics was that I didn’t get to run in the speed relay. I didn’t like the game with the globe that we tossed around. Something that would have been better is if you had to climb something in the Olympics like the fastest person to climb to the top of a rope and back down wins for their homeroom. Also it would be better if you switched the movie and something where you move around so that people will not be falling asleep at the end.

no date

I remember picking Daniel up from the overnight. I think I had to be there at something like 6:00 in the morning. I always liked to pick Daniel up from school. Always the first moment I'd see him, I'd think, "There's my boy!" This particular time, I knew he didn't have his glasses so I knew I was going to have to find him because unless I was close enough, he wasn't going to see me. So, I made my way in though the crowd of parents on the outside and then students on the inside and was looking around. He hadn't seen me come in so my first glance of him was from the back. Still, being my Daniel, I knew it was him. He was tired on the way home but had had fun. I don't remember anything very specific of our conversation, but it was enough for me to know that he had indeed had a good time and that he had good friends at school.

#3 Revealers

I think that Elliot is kind of weird and that he needs to get over dinosaurs. And that instead of going by himself to face his main bullies he should have brought someone with him. He should have ran away when he had the chance after he hit the one kids in the face with the sock full of marbles. I think the best part so far was when Elliot went and confronted bullies and they were swearing at each other. Russel should have went and helped Elliot when the other kids were hanging him over the bridge instead of waiting until he had been thrown over. Also when Elliot would not apologize for what he did and instead kept swearing at the bullies, I think that he did something that even the bullies would not do.

Written 3/10/11

#2 Revealers

In the book that we have been reading, “The Revealers,” I think that the band of girls that pick on the new girl are kind of stupid for picking on her just because she has different skin color and that she stood up when the teacher was talking to her. If I could be anyone of the kids that are picked on I would pick Russel because I don’t want to be a girl and the other person is kind of weird with his obsession with dinosaurs. Also I think that the kid that’s obsessed with dinosaurs should not be picked on so much.

Written 3/3/11 by Daniel

#1 Revealers

In the book Revealers I think that the main character person is treated very bad. The main bully ______________ should not have done a bunch of the things that he did and he should have been nicer to other people instead of beating them up. Also the main character should have told some what was happening.

Written 3/2/11 by Daniel

I found these images of the book online. I remember Daniel telling me about this book. He thought it was interesting but not a book he would have chosen to read on his own.

Anything (the actual title given by Daniel)

I am so bored right now. I have nothing to do except write so I am writing about how bored I am. I am bored because I am at school. I am in my least favorite subject in school, I am bored and I will be bored until I am not bored which means that I will be bored until I leave this boring school and go to the bus. Even though the bus ride home is boring. On the bus all I do is stare out the window and watch the cars, houses and trees flash by for almost an hour. Then I finally get off the boring bus at my bus stop. Run home. Then do my boring homework which takes me anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. Next I do things such as bring in wood, start the fire, and then either go outside, play a video game, or play a board/card game. Most people would say, “what a boring life.”

Written 3/16/11

No pictures today. I think they would ruin the boring theme.

God Bless America

This was was also received in an email from Paul and again, I had to share.

Friends,

“God Bless America” became the song that the nation rallied around after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Mourning crowds, including the US Congress, spontaneously broke into song while comforting each other and showing solidarity with those that had died, and those still missing. Now that very same song is under attack by atheists right here in Massachusetts.

The Wayland School District is pushing back against an atheist group’s claim that a high school band playing “God Bless America” is somehow an unconstitutional act, reports The Blaze. Superintendent Dr. Paul Stein said he plans to ignore the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s (FFRF) letter alleging separation of church and state violations.

“I appreciate where they’re coming from, I really do, but on the other hand I think it’s a question of where the line is drawn,” Stein told the MetroWest Daily News about the song that was played by the school band on Memorial Day and Pearl Harbor Day. “There has to be a sense about whether the schools are fostering the promotion or practice of religion, and I don’t believe the band playing ‘God Bless America’ does that.”

We applaud Superintendent Stein for his steadfast support of the school’s right to have the band play “God Bless America” and the district’s plan to ignore the bullying threats from FFRF. We still have freedom of religion and expression in this country, but the “wall of separation” crowd with their friends at the ACLU are working hard to erode those rights. That’s why we have to make our voices heard!

Please call and email Superintendent Dr. Paul Stein and thank him for his support of “God Bless America” and his willingness to not bow to such an outrageous request.

Phone: 508-358-3774

Email: paul_stein@wayland.k12.ma.us

For our families and our freedoms,

Kris