Editor’s Notebook

Danette Goulet

I don’t tear up easily. You grow up as one of six kids and you learn

to be tough.

I once tore both ligaments in my left knee skiing -- not so much as a

glimmer of a tear. (In fact, I was very proud because my sunglasses

didn’t even fall off.)

A friend of mine gave an impassioned speech once. It was heartfelt,

but he kept an eye on me -- certain that it would make me cry. Nope.

Sorry.

Although it goes against the grain to do so, I will tell you the

weakness that I have discovered in my armor. I tell you because it came

up again at an event here in Huntington Beach this week.

The one thing, it seems, that always manages to choke me up is

patriotism. Raise an American flag and break into a chorus of America the

Beautiful and I’ll suddenly have a lump the size of Mt. Kilimanjaro in my

throat.

I can’t tell you what it is about that song or the sight of Old Glory

that makes me emotional, but it is inevitable.

I know the anthem gives many people goose bumps, but for me it is not

just that song.

A round of Proud to be an American during a fireworks display elicits

a waterworks display from me.

Perhaps this heightened sense of patriotism comes from being reared in

Concord, Mass.

Perhaps all the visits to the Old North Bridge and Bunker Hill in

Boston actually rubbed off on me.

Maybe it was being born on April 19 -- 198 years to the day after the

“shot heard ‘round the world” began the Revolutionary War, in the very

town, decrees that I be a patriot.

Or perhaps I’m just a sap.

But standing in the gloom Tuesday morning as an enormous flag was

hoisted up in front of the old Broadway store at the Huntington Beach

Mall, with Golden West Community College Band playing a medley of

patriotic classics including America the Beautiful, I struggled to keep

my composure.

* DANETTE GOULET is the assistant city editor. She can be reached at

danette.goulet@latimes.com