Displaying respect

Back in the deep-dark bowels of history, in the 1960s, it was quite customary for householders to fly US flags on some holidays. My parents put out a pair on either side of the front porch on Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day. (For some reason Flag Day didn’t make the lineup.)

I used to love taking the two flags out of the coat closet, where they lived, unfurl them and slide the staffs into the holders affixed to the wooden pillars that flanked the front steps. They hung at a slight angle, so that you could see the beautiful, clear colors even if there was no wind.

We never hung them out in the rain, and we were careful to take them down, furl them tightly against the staffs and return them to the coat closet at dusk. Those were the rules.

It occurs to me that I hardly ever see flags flown in residential areas. I almost don’t expect it here in the Valley They Call Silicon, where people have their heads down disrupting technologies, shifting paradigms and being thought leaders, much too busy to consider acts of sacrifice by the men and women who go in harm’s way without thought of The Next Big Thing. Except as consumers of their killer apps.

They spend big bucks on Christmas light displays and Halloween extravaganzas, but hanging Old Glory is just too much of an effort. Plus—un-hip, you know.

(Also—more than 35% of the population around here is foreign born (a good portion of them on H1B visas), and therefore perhaps not particularly inclined to engage in displays of flag wavery.)

So I was rather heartened, on my walk around Mountain View, on Saturday to see this amid the carefully-groomed landscaping:

Respect.