Written by Marcia Hamilton | 05 September 2011

August 4, 2011 was President Obama's 50th birthday and we wanted to celebrate it with joy! At a house meeting a month before, a volunteer had a great idea. "Why not do a flash mob at the Shelton Thursday night concert!" Someone else suggested we do the hokey pokey putting our "left foot and left arms in and out." Then another person cautioned that we had better let the concert leaders know our intention and not do a flash mob, but just the song, and why not do "Happy Birthday." Our event was born!

Our idea was to form a circle with everyone holding "birthday candles" (made out of IM IN signs) with a yellow paper flame. We ordered a real cake from Laura Lewis' Sugar Cakes Bakery and brought plenty of plates, forks and napkins so we could share the real cake with the concert-going crowd.

About two weeks before the concert I was successful in contacting the band leaders and told them what we planned. I asked if they would play Happy Birthday during intermission. The wife of the band leader said she'd ask her husband, but "she didn't think so because they were Republicans." She said she'd get back to me, but she never did.

Our plans went forward, the cake was ordered, baked, picked up and delivered to us in our practice park (Thanks Sheri!) where 25 of us had gathered at 6:00 p.m. to make candles and practice our 5-minute song and dance routine (Thanks Liz) —with real live saxophone accompaniment (Thanks Vanessa !). Everyone chipped in a few dollars and we covered the cake cost. We decided to do our song at the beginning of the concert—before the real music started, so we proceeded across the street toward the gazebo. We were ready to honor our President, make a video of his live birthday cake to send to him, and share the real cake with all of the concert goers.

However our song and dance did not go as planned. As we approached the growing crowd, an irate man came up to me and said, "You can't do this here! The rotary has leased this park and our policy is no politics." I responded by saying, "All we want to do is sing happy birthday to the President, that's not political. He's our President." (I hadn't even mentioned the left-wing hokey pokey!) The man said, "You're not allowed here. You must leave!"

Sheri saved the day. She said, "Let's do it in the street. We know that's public property." Not to be dissuaded, we called the group together and formed a semblance of a circle. We led with "Left wing hokey pokey" and sang "happy birthday" second! Liz gave us our cue and we did our song and dance. We were definitely being political, but you couldn't tell, because the band started the concert 5 minutes early to drown us out!

What has this country come to? Why were we not welcome at the concert? Why couldn't they just say, "Sure....come on in." Why was singing Happy Birthday to President Obama seen as an affront? What about "free speech?" What about the right to assemble in a public park? I really believe the institution of the Presidency is disrespected. Where is the dignity to be afforded to the leader of our country—no matter who s/he is? Why is singing "happy birthday" to our president seen as "political" and not seen as "patriotic?" (They didn't even know about the left wing hokey pokey when they threw us out!) Indeed, not being allowed to sing to him was in fact a political decision made by the Republican members of the Rotary to keep us from honoring our President. But all in all, had we been allowed to sing, it would have been such a nice community event. All we were was a bunch of folks dancing and singing happy birthday, and sharing red white and blue birthday cake. We would probably have even left the "left wing hokey pokey" out in the spirit of bi-partisanship!

Instead, not being welcomed, we took our cake (and ate it too) across to the other park. We ate it all by our ourselves using Judy's fork-instead-of-knife method. And maybe that's the lesson....they don't want to share. So we'll just take the cake in 2012.

Got it up on YOU TUBE....  Here is the link http://youtu.be/eWXUojZmG2w

< Prev		Next >