The Flag

Not long after I bought my old farmhouse on the lake, I decided it needed a flagpole, and after hunting around, I found a Swedish one which was eight meters high and, thanks to a hinge at the base, could be easily lowered to the ground for repairs and such.

I grew up with a flagpole in the backyard of my parents' home, and it just didn't seem right not to carry on the tradition. For some reason, I prefer flags from the earliest days of our country, so either the "Betsy Ross" or the "Bennington" flags are at the top of the pole. If there's a party going on, I'll add a custom flag of a rampant scotty underneath the national flag; or if there's a visitor from the UK or Sweden, their flag will be added.

The flagpole and its array of flags have always given me a great deal of pleasure, so you may wonder - even as I do - why, the day before I left home for a long vacation across the Atlantic, I lowered the flag to half-staff where it remains.

It's that damned war.

I considered flying the flag upside down, the sign of distress, but that didn't seem quite right, and half-staff did.

One cannot think about the dead, the greviously wounded - both in mind and body - and not yield to the need to mourn. Each day the numbers increase, and because little has been asked of us, but a great deal of our children and grandchildren who will be saddled with the immense debt of this misadventure.

Beyond the military, journalists, and civilians who have been deprived of their futures, I mourn for our country which seems to have lost much of the essence which made us unique in the world - a weakened democracy, with Russia growling at Europe and China growing by leaps and bounds in very way.

There is no pleasure in my flagpole now, and it is not clear whether there ever will be, but it is a price which pains me each and every day, and I consider that almost a necessity.