by Joseph Solis-Mullen
The new flag was first hoisted on a windy fall day and everyone who could make it came down to the village circle at the center of town to witness the event. There was palpable excitement coursing through all those present.
It was an enormous flag, over seventy feet long and thirty feet wide, donated by the McCutcheon family to replace the one presently in use. There was nothing wrong with it, mind; the current flag was just so ordinary, so small, so singularly unimpressive flying over the center of town.
And so, hands over hearts, the national anthem playing on a small portable stereo, the town’s collective pride swelled as the brilliant new drapery slowly climbed the pole, and when it reached the top, the mighty flag looked majestic rippling against the pale blue sky.
To the west a mass of cumulonimbus clouds pregnant with unseasonable storms loomed. We stood looking on in admiration until the rain eventually came and chased everyone inside and the great flag, soggy with the absorbed water, hung inertly against the pole.
Afterward the immense flag frequently hung limp as it took a considerable amount of wind to rouse the heavy drapery. When the wind did drive hard enough the flag flapped loudly and the thick metal ringlets clanged resoundingly against the steel pole. Though I knew well these were both complained about privately by those who lived nearby, no one ever but publicly proclaimed their pride at having such an excellent display of patriotic virtue held aloft over our humble village.
I saw them bring it down that first night, our magnificent flag. It took seven of them from the local VFW each taking hold around the outside, surrounding it but struggling to keep the heavy, drenched folds off the ground. Two of them got underneath with brooms and held the middle high overhead, while the other four each took a corner and the seventh limped off for reinforcements. As I looked on it struck me how bizarrely it looked like a circus tent seen that way, our great flag.
Anyway, in the future the VFW boys were much more prepared, and the raising and lowering of the sacred fabric looked properly dignified to anyone watching.
Joseph Solis-Mullen teaches history at Spring Arbor University. Send him mail.
Isonomia Quarterly 