The President of the United States George Walker Bush
Friday, September 21, 2001
Quote of the Day
"Tonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to
defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger and anger to
resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring
justice to our enemies, justice will be done."
"We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger,
we have found our mission and our moment. . . . We will not
tire, we will not falter and we will not fail."
by Lucianne Goldberg
MY TWIN BROTHER WHO tortured and teased me until I got to
be bigger than he was, had me convinced that there were
times when God could send a bolt of lightening down from
the sky and strike you dead. Of course, I believed him.
My brother told me God would do it if "a person," meaning me,
walked back to the pew after communion looking like they were
chewing the wafer. He also said I would get it right between
the eyes if I ever let the American flag touch the ground.
Since I was flag monitor for my home room this was very scary.
Jerry Brownmiller and I were in charge of putting up and
taking down the flag from the pole at Douglas MacArthur
grammar school. And while not quite as sacred as a communion
wafer, the flag was held in similar awe. Mind you, this was
in a time when nearly every thing a family did was for the
"war effort." Victory gardens, crushed tin cans, string and
rubber band balls, and coffee cans of grease and fat drippings
were all a part of every day life for a patriotic family and
all families were that. It remains lost in the sands of time
what they used that grease for, but there you have it.
Then I grew up and long haired, zonked out pot heads started burning the flag and wearing it as a T-shirt and head wrap and doing I don't know what all with it. Anyone who lived through the "big war" was slack jawed with horror that people who did that wouldn't get arrested and thrown in jail until they sobered up. One jerk showed up on a late night talk show wearing the flag as a shirt got his chest pixilated for his trouble. That attitude didn't last long.
The American Civil Liberties patriots said it was a first amendment right to fold, spindle and mutilate our national symbol. And, here I thought there was some kind of law.
Wrong, wrongo....what you do or don't do to the American flag is covered in what the Government calls, flag "etiquette." When is the last time you heard that word?
The government has a whole page of rules on flag "etiquette" and as flags have suddenly bloomed all over the nation this week, I'll bet you or someone you know is being - how should we frame this.....flag rude (?) right this minute.
For instance, you should never fly the flag in the rain. If you hang it flat on a wall, the blue part with the stars (called the union) should be uppermost and to the observer's left.
You must take it down after sunset however, - I like this one "when a patriotic effect is desired, the flag may be displayed 24 hours a day if properly illuminated." They don't say what that would be - floods, baby spots, candlelight, whatever.
When you fly it at half-staff (and our Mayor says our flags here must be a half-staff to mourn our more than 6000 dead, that's right, 6000 dead....say that slowly) you must run it up to the top of the pole all the way then lower it to half way down. The flag should never be flown lower than any other flag. And, here's the one that almost got me zapped by lightening. The flag should never touch the ground.
Lynn, the girl who sat behind me in home room and had a pink lunch box with Betty Boop on both tin sides, had a flag in a glass case in her house. Her father was killed at
Guadalcanal and the Secretary of the Navy gave it to her mother in a tight little triangle when they took it off his coffin at Arlington cemetery. Oh, that's another piece of flag etiquette. You probably aren't folding it right, either.
Here's another rule that is being broken all over town.
Driving up the Jersey Turnpike on my way back from Barbara Olson's gut-wrenching funeral, I saw huge flags flapping, tucked into the hinge of car trunks. I saw a flag T-shirt flying from a radio antenna and one puncturing, ear to ear, the head of a Garfield Stuck-on-you.
My apartment building, which houses a great many of those people who thought it was a cool statement to burn flags in the 60s, has a flag hung from the lobby awning so big you can't see the restaurant across the street. It must be quite a jolt for the Red Depends crowd on the way to their weekend homes in the Hamptons. I'm thinking of leaving a note to the management with this piece of flag etiquette. "When displayed over the middle of the street or from a structure, it should be suspended vertically with the union to the north in an east and west street or to the east in a north and south street." They, of course, have it improperly hung but at least they had one. Probably because our super is Irish and has a lot of friends at Engine House #7.
This is a lot of stuff to remember and act properly on. Perhaps a cadre of Flag Police are in order. The same people who follow you and remind you to pick up after your dog could be enlisted. Then again, one could go to any firehouse in this city for the rules. They know them.
They have always known them. The New York City Firefighters have ordered more than three hundred coffin sized flags. And, I'll bet they will know how to fold them properly before they give them to the widows.
Originally published 9-21-01
"Do not drape over the hood, top, sides or back of a vehicle or a railroad train or a boat. When the flag is displayed on a motorcar (the government's word, not mine), the staff shall be fixed firmly to the chassis or clamped to the right fender."