Since not even many of my friends have much of an occasion to drop into my bedroom, few of them know it's where I house my collection of American flag paraphernalia. I suppose patriotism is behind my love of the flag, but I tend to think of it as an esthetic response to the colors and the design. Americans know that Betsy Ross created the emblem in 18th century, and that her handiwork stuck. The alternating horizontal red-and-white stripes she sewed still represent the original 13 colonies. What has changed over the intervening 200-plus years is the number of five-pointed white stars featured on the blue rectangle at the upper left. Where once there were just 13 for the colonies, there are now 50 for the states.
I find the flag and the many changes that have been rung on it endlessly fascinating and so have accumulated paperweights with embedded flag designs and red-white-and-blue frames and shields and a teddy bear wearing a stars-and-stripes roll-collar sweater and a fan, the ribs or which are striped and stars. As well as items too numerous to list here, some of them bordering on the cute, but all of them holding great meaning for me.
There was a time not that long ago when my devotion to the flag would have been questioned by people who believed the flag as an American symbol wasn't something to be particularly proud of. During the Vietnam War, which now seems ancient history, many loyal Americans felt the honorable action to take as an expression of their objection to the military presence in Southeast Asia was burning the flag. They stood for a particularly vocal minority, but there they were nonetheless in a not insignificant number, burning or trampling on or otherwise defacing the flag at anti-war demonstrations. While they were at it, they were angering fellow Americans who took the more acceptable my-country-right- or-wrong stand.
This has changed dramatically since September 11 and the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. To be sure, there have been outraged Americans who, because of their past political postures, remain reticent about waving the flag. They are, however, in a very small minority. Most Americans are extremely emotional about the flag and are seizing every opportunity to display it wherever they can.
Needless to say, this is true of New York City, where almost every house and apartment building has a flag flying outside or shown in windows. It's true of businesses, too, where there's the sense that not to have a flag positioned prominently is anti-American. And if it isn't a flag, it's something loudly red, white and blue. There's a company around the corner from me that manufactures and sells mannequins. The current display has men, women and children outfitted in flag clothing. One of the adult female figures wears a flag-inspired thong. A few blocks farther north, there's a store where the muslin on two dress forms is printed in stars and stripes. Everywhere in town street vendors hawk flag pins, flag scarves, flag refrigerator magnets, flag knitted caps, flag t-shirts, flag bandanas. I stopped into a store on West 57th Street where a beaded evening purse with a flag design was going for $450. Perhaps the most noticeable flag tribute is at the top of the Empire State Building, which until recently was lighted differently from night to night, depending on the season and/or holiday. Since September 11, it has been and remains red, white and blue.
In almost any other national climate, this abundance of flags and flag permutations would register with many citizens, and I guess I include myself, as uncomfortably jingoistic. But there's no doubt in my mind that at the moment and for the foreseeable future, the sight of flag after flag after flag is reassuring, comforting, necessary. It's what Francis Scott Key promised when he wrote our national anthem at the beginning of the 19th century. For those who don't know, it's called, as a matter of pertinent fact, "The Star-Spangled Banner." Observing the aftermath of a battle in the war of 1812, Key wrote that "the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there."
Today in assailed but unbowed New York City, the flag once again is still there. It's also there and there and there and there and everywhere.
Also by David Finkle:
COFFEE-HOUSE BLUES
THE ZEN OF JAY-WALKING
CHANGING PLACES
DARKNESS AT NOON
UNION SQUARE
MAKING IT REAL
WAKE UP CHILLUN
