I don’t make a very good patriot. I’ve never much liked the “Star Spangled Banner” either. It’s alright as a poem and all, but it’s too hard to sing to be a decent national anthem and has never really had any emotional impact on me. At sporting events and graduations and such, I sit, unmoved, impassively ignoring the glares of those around me as they sing.

Tonight, though, something was different. Tonight I sat and listened as our national anthem was sung before a ball game. I watched the players’ faces on TV, I watched those around me, but most of all I listened. To the music and to the words.

And I cried.