Guest blog: If this land’s still made for them and me

Posted on 05/10/2011 @ 12:01 PM

By Ronald Newman, Ph.D.UM English Prof. (Retired)
e. rnewman9@hotmail.com 
Tel. (305) 724-3343

I recently returned from a couple of weeks in Philadelphia, where, among other pleasures, I bounced my 20-month-old grandson on my knee to a familiar tune:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.

It was wonderful to see in his baby blue eyes a future when he’ll realize hopes and dreams that will make it true indeed that this land is his land.

But can we say the same for thousands of Florida’s children lacking his resources—emotional and physical? The Florida legislature with fatal short-sightedness seems to think that it is doing this state a favor by cutting programs that protect our most vulnerable citizens. Future generations will not thank them for it.

Few people know that the stirring song “This Land is Your Land” includes a final warning verse.

I’ll change a few words and hope that our legislators will hear it:

In the squares of the city, in the shadows of its steeples
Near shuttered offices, I see our children.
And some are cryin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for them and me.