The American Flag

 In a column published July 6, 1970 and then included in her book, I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression, Erma Bombeck wrote about the American Flag.  She wrote because of something she had seen on television.  A group students and New York construction workers had an altercation and part of it involved the American flag.  The students referred to the American Flag as the construction workers' Flag and symbol.  What struck Erma Bombeck most was the students did not think of the flag as their flag or symbol.
    As a parent, I guess I always thought respect for the flag was congenital. Is it possible I was so busy teaching the basics, I never took the time to teach “flag.”

     She included in her column a few well known quotes along with her own words about what she was saying to her children instead of teaching "flag".

“Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light.…”

(Don’t slouch. Pick up your feet. Don’t talk with food in your mouth. Stop squinting. Turn that radio down. Get off the phone. Tie that shoestring before you trip on it.”)

     She then ended with these words:

Did I forget to tell them it was their flag they hoisted over Mount Suribachi? Their flag that flies over champions at the Olympics? Their flag that draped the coffin of John F. Kennedy? Their flag that was planted in the windless atmosphere of the moon? It’s pride. It’s love. It’s goose bumps. It’s tears. It’s determination. It’s a torch that is passed from one generation to another.

I defy you to look at it and tell me you feel nothing.

On July 4, 2017 I watched the end of the Boston Pops concert.  As they played and sang "You're a Grand Ole Flag" an American Flag unfurled behind the orchestra.  I thought about the Flag, what it means and what is has endured throughout the years.  It is more than just a decorated piece of cloth.  The Flag has been stepped on and burned by people to protest inequality and discrimination and it it has been revered by people who seek to deny equality to and discriminate against others. It has been a source of controversy as people argue over whether pledging allegiance to the Flag is a form of indoctrination or an act of patriotism.  It has draped the coffins of those selfless men and women who served in our military and been derided by those who oppose democracy.  The American Flag is given to new citizens when they take the citizenship oath and the American Flag is waved by nativists who want immigrants to go back to their countries.  It represents the best the United States of America can be and the worst the United States of America can be.  But through it all, just as it did during the battle Francis Scott Key witnessed, the American Flag has endured, just as the the country has and just as the Constitution has.  We can let the conservatives continue to claim the American Flag as their own or we can take it back, wave it proudly, and let it lead us forward as we continue to move toward that "more perfect union".


 

(The link is to the online text of Erma Bombeck's book.  Scroll down toward the end to read Flag)