May 27, 2006
It’s a Grand Old Flag Posted by John Steele Gordon at 08:50 AM EST Americans have always had an unusually intense relationship with the national flag. Unlike many other flags it is never dipped in salute. It should not touch the ground. When old, it should be buried or—the canton cut out, thus making it no longer a flag—respectfully burned. The rules for its display are exact and extensive (no flag may ever fly higher; it must be on the left of all other flags as seen by the audience; it must be illuminated if flown at night; the canton is on the left if flown vertically but on the right when draped on a coffin, etc., etc.). Many songs have been written about , and indeed our national anthem is about it. An Englishman once suggested to me that the flag in America takes the place of the monarchy in Britain, symbolizing the very essence of the nation and its history as nothing else can. I’m not a psychologist, so I’ll have to leave that to others. But there is no doubt as to the power of its symbolism. That’s why there are periodic—and so far happily unavailing—attempts to constitutionally ban disrespect for it. When I was a child my brother and I often stayed with my grandparents on holiday weekends, and there was nothing we both enjoyed more than raising the enormous 46-star American flag that my great uncle, an army officer, had acquired in 1912 after Arizona and New Mexico had raised the number of stars to 48 and the flag had become surplus. It hung between two spruce trees in front of my grandparents’ house, and it took three people to raise it properly, one to hold and two to hoist. One year one of the dogs chased it as it waved gently in the breeze and tore holes in it, so the flag is now about two feet shorter than it ought to be. A few moths have gotten at it over the years, but the holes have been darned. Close on to a hundred years of Gordon children have helped to raise it and lower it. And this Gordon child, now 62, still does if the weather is fair enough. I’m happy to note that the weather report for this Memorial Day is good for flag flying and so up it will go once again. In a few years my brand new great niece—Grace Steele Gordon—will be old enough to help, as her father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather did before her. I look forward to that.
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