Keep calm and carry on; summer is approaching

    This year seems to be flying by. It continually amazes me that we’re already in March and that the end of the school year is in sight. With this realization, of course, comes the stress of knowing all that has yet to be accomplished. Even young adults in the “real world” can begin looking toward the summer as a period of relaxation from the busyness of life in the form of summer vacation.
    I recently held midterm conferences with my college freshman composition students. In those conferences, I gave them an idea of their progress and what they should be looking forward to in the last months of the semester: the research project.
    As their faces fell, I tried to boost their morale by explaining that they would have the rest of the semester to work on these projects. Their counter: It’s a lot of time to procrastinate and push off the research until the last minute. It was then that I realized the anticipation of summer was already upon my students. They were already looking forward to being done with an entire year of college classes.
    As the conferences were nearing their end, I began telling my students that, yes, these last weeks would be overwhelming, but that they needed to continue forging ahead until May. It was then that my final student told me that she would “keep calm and carry on.”
    For the past year, there has been resurgence in this “meme” – a concept that spreads from person to person, especially through the Internet. Various parodies and imitations have appeared in mainstream media. Across campus, I’ve noticed stickers and bags bearing variations on the original saying, as young adults begin to take it up as a sort of mantra. And yet, many do not know the history behind the catchphrase.
    During World War II, the British government formed the Ministry of Information to promote publicity and propaganda for the war effort. In 1939, the ministry began designing morale-boosting posters with colorful backgrounds, the crown of King George VI, and simple font.
    The first two posters read: “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory” and “Freedom is in Peril.” These posters were posted across Britain throughout the duration of the war. The third poster, “Keep Calm and Carry On,” was supposed to be issued only upon the invasion of Britain by Germany. Since that invasion never occurred, the poster was never displayed to the public, according to the BBC News.
    It is believed that the majority of the posters were destroyed at the end of WWII; however, in 2000, Barter Books came across a copy hidden in dusty old books sold at auction. A small number of the original poster remains in the National Archives and the Imperial War Museum in London. Last year, 15 more were discovered by the BBC’s Antique Roadshow.
    The Economist assigns the popularity of the poster to “nostalgia for a certain British character, an outlook … that taps directly into the country’s mythic image of itself: unshowily brave and just a little stiff, brewing tea as the bombs fall.”
    While this may be true, I also believe that the popularity arises from a nostalgia for the older days that we hear about from our grandparents: a simpler time, without the stressors of contemporary life complicated by social media and the thinking that we must be everywhere at all times.
    As we continue anticipating the lazy summer months, and as we, as Catholics, anticipate the election of a new pope, perhaps it is best to keep in mind the popular catchphrase: “Keep Calm and Carry On.” For, despite the hectic lives that we lead, we must continue carrying on as life continues to fly by us.
    Heather Bozant Witcher can be reached at [email protected].