Consistency

Consistency, humans crave it, knowing something is always going to be the same, whether it is the food at a restaurant, the feel of the rocking chair in your grandmother’s living room, the first bite of a Krispy Kreme donut, even the sound or song we choose for our cellphone, all comforting or have meaning to us. It is consistent.

This week, as we have for 80 years, will witness a citizen become a President by uttering 36 words on January 20th at noon. The four words after the oath are optional, “So help me God.” Then as we always do after ceremonies, everyone goes to eat. Consistency.

Presidents come and go, but that pot of Swedish ivy on the Oval Office mantel has been there for 36 years since Reagan. The wood and wicker chairs on either side of the President’s desk have been around for 80 years.

Probably the oldest object in the Oval Office that has been used again and again is the Resolute Desk so named for the ship, H.M.S. Resolute. The timbers from this British ship that left Britain in 1856 on an ill-fated attempt to find the fabled Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic was used to make the desk. She failed to find the passage joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but she became a mighty fine desk. You can see a replica at the Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta.

Consistently since day 1 of our Presidents has been THEIR song, “Hail to the Chief”. Based on a poem by Sir Walter Scott, “Lady of the Lake,” the words were set to music by English composer, James Sanderson in 1812, then crossed the sea to become our song. Always played consistently with four ruffles and flourishes, ruffles are played by drums and flourishes by trumpets, precede the start of the song. Believe it or not there are actually words to this song, it’s worth a google.

Longfellow’s words “Sail on, oh Ship of State, Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the Hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!” Consistently true since 1776.