FLAG DAY

14 JUNE 1885

I knew today was flag day. It's pretty easy for me to remember. My oldest daughters birthday is tomorrow. After hanging out the flag, I was puttering around the house and I stopped dead in my tracks with the thought, "What is flag day all about'? I thought, well, it's the day for everyone in the USA to fly the American Flag. Good enough, or so I thought.

I had a nagging feeling for quite sometime. You know, the kind of feeling that drives you nuts until you do something about it. So I sat down at the computer, which I had decided not to turn on today, and Googled, "Flag Day".

I sat and read for quite some time. I decided one of two things, my memory is shot, or I was never taught this in school. If I have forgotten something, when I read or hear about it, the ole light bulb goes on and there's the thought, oh yeah. Not today. So I am assuming I was not taught about flag day. I thought this was quite odd, but as I was thinking about when I went to school, maybe it's not so odd. I attended elementary school in, are you ready for this, ugh, the 60s. Yep the 1960's. A totally different century. Makes me sound like a dinosaur who should be put out of their misery.

Anyway, it was a time with a lot of turmoil. The Vietnam war, the peace sign, make love not war, crazy music, lots of rebellion and anti USA sentiment within our country, and of course, the hippie movement. Who can forget that. Those crazy hippies.

I can look back and see the "Politically Correct" movement was already starting.

So I have spent a lot of time today, reading, thinking, pondering, and sometimes with tears in my eyes, wondering what is wrong with people. What has happened to the patriotism in this country. Most people can't be bothered to fly a flag.

So this is what I found out about Flag Day.

The “Stars and Stripes”, the official National symbol of the United States of America was authorized by congress on that Saturday of June 14, 1777 in the fifth item of the days agenda. The entry in the journal of the Continental Congress 1774-1789 Vol. Vlll 1777 reads “Resolved that the flag of the thirteen United States be Thirteen stripes alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

On June 14th, 1885, Bernard J. Cigrand, a 19 year old teacher at Stony Hill School, placed a 10 inch, 38- star flag in a bottle on his desk then assigned essays on the flag and its significance. This observance, commemorated Congresses adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777. This observance was also the beginning of Cigrand’s long years of fervent and devoted effort to bring about national recognition and observance of Flag Day. The crowning achievement of his life came at age fifty when President Wilson, on June 14, 1916, issued a proclamation calling for a nation wide observance of Flag Day.

http://www.nationalflagday.com/default.asp

I learned a lot today. I'm grateful I have the freedom and the right to fly the American Flag. I have contemplated several times putting in a flag pole and light, so we can fly the flag in our side yard. And you know, I just might do that.