Yesterday was Flag Day, in case you totally missed it. It happened on a Wednesday, for some reason.
Most important days are scheduled for a Sunday, or maybe Monday.
No one schedules an important day on a Wednesday. Except sometimes, Christmas; but not very often.
I hope you didn’t miss Mother’s Day, which fell, appropriately, on a Sunday, as it should. Mother’s Day is a much harder day to miss, although it did interfere (for some of us) with watching the AT&T Byron Nelson Golf Tournament. Why anyone would schedule a golf tournament on Mother’s Day is beyond me. Luckily, my mom is typically satisfied with an early Sunday Brunch at a local restaurant, so I got to see most of the tournament.
Father’s Day (apparently scheduled for this coming Sunday?) is a different animal altogether. Most fathers don’t want to be celebrated. We just want to be left alone, to watch the game.
Then, we have Flag Day.
The Flag is even less interested in being celebrated than Father. I doubt the Flag even noticed that its celebration was on a Wednesday.
The Flag would never expect to be taken out to brunch, and would absolutely not care if you wanted to watch the game.
What the Flag prefers is to be strung up on a pole and left alone, to hang. Or occasionally, to get excited and wave around for a while.
On the moon, where there’s no atmosphere and no wind to blow, the Flag has to be supported by a horizontal wire or rod, when you are taking a picture.
Some folks dislike being in photographs, but the Flag is totally comfortable if people want to take its picture and share it on social media… or online… or in print media. I can’t count the number of times a saw photos of the Flag shared online, yesterday on Flag Day.
Curiously, the Pagosa Daily Post didn’t share any pictures of the Flag yesterday.
So to make up for that (unintentional?) oversight, I’d like to share a few photographs today in my column, celebrating the Flag.
A day late… but is it ever too late to honor the Flag?
That last image is not actually a photograph… but what a wonderful painting!
If I were a Flag, I would want to be in this painting. And not just on Flag Day.
Or else, I would want to be on the moon. How many of us will ever get our picture taken on the moon?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.