The excellent blog 9725

One spring morning a few years ago, my neighbor climbed a ladder at sunrise, bolted a small bracket to his porch column, and eased a folded flag into the holder. He stepped back, squinted to check the angle, and smiled. A couple of days later another neighbor asked him to take it down, worried that it made the block feel political. They talked on the sidewalk, two people with coffee cups balancing rights and feelings, and eventually agreed to keep the flag but add a small s

One spring morning a few years ago, my neighbor climbed a ladder at sunrise, bolted a small bracket to his porch column, and eased a folded flag into the holder. He stepped back, squinted to check the angle, and smiled. A couple of days later another neighbor asked him to take it down, worried that it made the block feel political. They talked on the sidewalk, two people with coffee cups balancing rights and feelings, and eventually agreed to keep the flag but add a small s

One autumn morning I walked into a school office to drop off a donated box of tiny stick flags. The secretary smiled, then hesitated. The principal, she explained, had asked staff to keep personal symbols to a minimum so the foyer would feel “neutral.” She thanked me, took the box, and said she would check with the district. Weeks later I saw no flags, not even by the front desk. A local resident had complained after a spirited veterans assembly, the note said, and now they

On a windy Saturday a few autumns ago, I hauled a weathered wooden pole from my garage, the kind my grandfather used when he flew the flag outside his farmhouse. The cloth I clipped to it was not the current Stars and Stripes, but a reproduction of the thirteen star circle. I had spent the night before resewing a loose seam and steaming the folds straight. My neighbor, a retired teacher with a gentle manner and sharp memory, paused on his morning walk and gave me a nod. No