Jimi Hendrix is on the move! See his visit at Fort McHenry!

Fort McHenry National Monument and Shrine

The Traveling Hendrix makes his first appearance at Fort McHenry National Monument and Shrine, one of the 400 sites managed by the National Park Service.  The site itself is a fifteen-ish minute water taxi ride from the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland, (There is a way to drive to it, but my only experience is with the water taxi), and it houses a small museum, which provides context for the events leading up to and following the battle at Fort McHenry, a major event in the War of 1812.  The retaining walls are also still present, as well as other structures. 

(Psst—if you click the title of this post it takes you right to the Fort McHenry NPS page for more details if you're interested in seeing the fort for yourself!)

Of the two times I’ve been there, I’ve always been there when the “good weather” flag is taken down for the day.  And this flag is big.  Like, massive.  Like 28 by 32 feet or-something-like-that big.  At that size, it can’t be folded into the standard triangle.  It has to be rolled.  The rangers there recruit a ton of visitors to help out in rolling it, and incorporate an interpretive program in the form of a game to get the flag rolled before it’s put away for the day.  A smaller flag is flown in its place, keeping the stars and stripes up all the time.

On this particular day, the volunteers involved in rolling the flag included a huge school field trip of (I would guess) seventh or eighth graders.  Hendrix enjoyed jamming out to the unity that all of these kids—the future artists, doctors, park rangers, and other ambitions—had while rolling the flag.  There were students of all colors and races coming together for a hands-on experience to something that is as much their identity as it is yours, mine, and the nation’s. 

In all honesty, the only two things I can really ever remember about the War of 1812 is that's when Francis Scott Key wrote the Star-Spangled Banner and it all ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.  But there’s so much more to it:  the battle there was a major turning point in helping the U.S. establish an identity—one of resilience and determination.  Thanks to Francis Scott Key, there were now words, eventually adopted in 1931 as the national anthem, to go along with a flag billowing in the wind after a major onslaught. 

 

I think the beauty of the whole thing is that the national anthem means so many things to so many people.  Think about it. A good majority of us can probably remember someone performing it at the start of some sporting event that absolutely NAILED it.  And I would think it safe to assume that all of us know someone or are someone that served in the military—a neighbor, a friend, a family member, or someone you remember graduating with—where the words can have a whole new meaning if they gave their all for all of us. 

And the cool part?  Jimi Hendrix had his own take on it!  This particular performance is Hendrix performing at the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, New York, 1969.  You may like it; you may not, but is that not what the United States was initially created as?  A place of asylum for people to express themselves with whatever talents they have, a place of refuge for those weak and weary?  May “the star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

As it turns out, there are actually three more verses to Francis Scott Key’s poem!  Click here if you’re interested in seeing what the rest of the lyrics are to “The Star-Spangled Banner”!