When our elder daughter was to take her year of high school "abroad," she elected to go to my US home of Dallas, Texas. [after growing up in Germany]She lived with our friends there and went to the local public high school. As this was to be her first time living
away from the family, and the first time living abroad, I went with her for the first week (gave me a chance to visit with our friends there anyway).
After the first couple of days, I asked her if all was OK. She said, yes, but she had a hard time getting used to some of the stranger rituals.
Strange rituals? In a Dallas public school?
Yes, she said. The ritual chanting they did every morning.
I said that they were forbidden by federal law to do ritual chanting in a public school.
She insisted that they did just that. They all got up, and said something in unison that started with "I spread the peaches."
I answered that I could not imagine that they all stood up and chanted "I spread the peaches." She said there was more to it, but that was the only part she understood. They mumbled the rest.
Wondering if a Dallas public school had been taken over by Hare Krishnas or Body Snatchers, I asked her for more details.
She said they all stood up together, put their hands on their chests and started to mumble this chant that started with "I spread the peaches."
Hands on their chests? I said, could it be that they are saying "I pledge allegiance?"
She said she had no idea. What did "pledge" mean and what did "allegiance" mean?
She was 16, and her English was pretty good, but in normal conversation, the words "pledge" and allegiance" are not frequently used with your 16 year old daughter, and so she didn't know either word in English, having grown up as a German.
The Dallas kids were so bored with chanting it each day that they mumbled it to the point where my daughter couldn't make out a word they were saying, and her ears transformed the first part into the closest thing she would have understood.
I spread the peaches to the flag....................
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