I’ve been thinking about flying a flag, the good old Stars and Stripes, the one I started pledging to as a first grader at the Point School in Westport way back in the fall of 1960. I know my family used to fly one, if not daily, certainly on the high patriotic holidays of The Fourth of July, Armistice Day, and Memorial Day. I remember Dad clipping it to hooks and using a pulley to raise it to the top of the pole. I would hold it carefully, and very respectfully, if somewhat wadded, in my 4, 5, and 6 year old arms to keep it off the ground. (This stopped in 1960 when one of the two hurricanes toppled the pole, breaking it near ground level. It then became part of my tight rope practicing equipment.) When I started school I also joined the Brownies, proudly wore my uniform with the other little girls, and learned, even more respectfully, how to fold and furl the flag. Every event in those days started with The Pledge.
I don’t recall feeling especially patriotic. It was just of the embedded rituals that were part of being born in that place, in that community where my parents had been born and grown up years before. It was no different than saying prayers before going to bed, putting on school clothes to go grocery shopping even in the summer, eating the pie filling first before savoring the glorious juice soaked crust. It was one of the landmarks of my life.
I knew that what I and my family did was not what everyone did, but it didn’t much matter to me. On Memorial Day I believed myself to be the envy of every kid we passed as I stood on a float beside my Dad. He played clarinet and wore a white shirt with striped gaiters around his arms. I wore a red, white, and blue dress and flung candy to the crowd. What could be better? At school I was one of the five or six kids that did not get released early from school to take the bus up to Central Village for religious education. I knew the Catholic kids attended catechism because I had a friend who tried to teach it to me. I had no idea what the other kids did, but I was a Quaker, a member of the Society of Friends, and there were a lot of things we didn’t do, although then I wasn’t really clear what those things were.. I’m sure, now, that the teachers wished we would all get on the bus, but then what mattered was that I could have an hour of peaceful reading in one of the books from the book cart the library refreshed each month.
I had a fondness for the cadence of language. One book described different types of houses around the world. There were square ones made of adobe, round huts with thatching, brick, stone, wood, plaster, steel structures in all sorts of landscapes. Each section was closed with words that, in a religious setting, would have been part of a call and response ritual. They became a mantra for me that I applied broadly. “It all depends. It all depends on who you are, and where you live, and what you have to build with.” It suggested that there could be lots of different approaches to the same problem. It seemed to pair nicely with the Golden Rule. It became a keystone.
Time passed. I encountered challenges. I learned lessons. I was shocked. When my family moved to East Africa, it was the first time I was among people who were not like me. Well, duh, you might be thinking. But no, it was not the Tiriki, or Kikuyu, or Marigoli. It was not even the other Americans who were USAID workers or from other church groups, or the British. It was other Quakers who, coming from other Yearly Meetings more conservative than ours, judged us according to their own standards. I started referring to myself as a New England Friend. Although I didn’t think of it in these terms, I was learning to manage expectations.
Back in the States, after three years in Kenya and one in Jordan, I was in Junior High. I started learning about the political fissures that divide people. Vietnam was prominent. I watched Dad navigate conversations at the Presbyterian Church we attended where people asked outright “Are you a Hawk or a Dove?” I could see the problem. Should he lie and live with that? Should he tell the truth and suffer through an unpleasant lecture? And when it’s the Chief of Police asking, what then? Was it better to be on the asking end of the exchange, or the answering end? There was often no perfect stance.
In 1967, the West Bank between Israel and Jordan, blew up. Mom, as she often did, came home from school one day and then was miserable, fractious, and either ill or angry for the next week, sniping at us and fighting with Dad. Finally Dad found out what was wrong. She had been looking at a magazine in the library and found an illustrated article describing the Six Day War. One of the pictures showed a group of Palestinians balancing bundles on their heads, hands in the air, being forced across the Jordan River at gunpoint. In the center, leading the way, was my youngest sister’s kindergarten teacher. The war, which she had barely been managing, came suddenly personal. Her agony leaked out and swamped us all. The relief on sharing it was magical, and a lesson she never really learned. Then a new family moved into town. They were the son, daughter-in-law, and three kids of a doctor in town, a German Jew who had survived. They asked Mom to tutor their grandson in English so he could be prepared to start school in the fall. “You know where I’ve lived and my stand on Israel,” Mom told them. “I’d really rather not. I’m not sure I could be fair.” “We know how you stand,” they told her. “We are Jews and so are they. But they are here because they, and we, disagree with the direction General Dayan is taking. We trust you will do your best.” So she tutored the boy and refused payment. Instead, I found myself taking German lessons from the Grandmother, once a week, when the boy was at our house. That summer, for me, and evermore, the world was painted in shades of gray. Dichotomies are for the very young; icosahedrons are for adults.
To fly a flag or not? When presented with an either/or situation, I invariably look for at least a third way. I’ve learned to make decisions aware of my own reasons, and to live with the consequences of my choices. I am not a blind follower of anything. Nor will I apologize for things others may see as a weakness, but I see as a strength. I’ve had doors shut and others open because of the number of questions I ask, or the things I believe. I haven’t met an idea that I can’t explore, at least in the privacy of my own mind.
But this question of flying a flag seems to be less subtle than perhaps it should be. It seems to be a symbol that has been commandeered. In some respects I am conservative. I don’t show much skin in my clothing choices. I’ll choose quiet songs with strong lyrics over headbanging shouty music. I drive a sturdy car known for a high mileage engine rather than speed, although if it were a vivid lime green or electric purple that would be nice. I try to eat healthy food, but am not so deluded as to think I am anything approaching sveldt. But I don’t think any of these things are really considered conservative these days. I think they’re just quirky. I would not dream of making any of these a requirement under the law.
The flag, fifty stars on a blue field with thirteen red and white stripes, has somehow been co-opted by people who carry guns in public, who are more loudly patriotic than others, who seem to act as if free speech is for them and compulsory listening is for others, who seem to believe their moral standards are superior – but mostly when applied to others. This is not a camp I wish to join, and I fear that flying the flag will put me there. I have often passed a group of folks by the side of the road, with their red hats, waving their enormous flags. A sign on one of their trucks invites patriots to join them. If I asked, would I be welcome as a fellow patriot, with my blue hat advertising a different candidate? I fear that I would not be met with open arms.
