From the editor: A song for a day

Big flags are symbolic of one thing, for the most part—used car sales.

Just about every large auto dealership across the country unfurls one of those eye catching linens, measuring half a football field or thereabout, waving over a shining sea of polished metal and plastic. Perhaps some of these vehicles are liveried in amber or majestic purple, who knows.

Of course, there were large flags of greater consequence. I have no idea exactly when Baltimore seamstress Mary Pickersgill finished the most famous of these. It was 200 years ago and it was massive, 30 feet by 42 feet of bunting, stitched together by a single craftswoman who apparently wanted to make a statement piece.

June 14 is Flag Day, one of the more overlooked of American holidays. It falls on a Saturday this year, so there is no time off associated with the event . . . as if anyone ever took a Flag Day break. There are no fireworks, no national festivals—no one even runs around draped in the stars and stripes, for that matter. Most people don’t know it exists, or even why there is such a thing (to recognize that august moment when, in 1777, the Continental Congress adopted a banner, by the way).

The best we can offer, on the 200th anniversary of Pickersgill’s flag, is a national singalong, word of which I just stumbled across.

Oh, well. Few nations make more—and less—of their national colors. Politicians consider it a necessary accessory to their lapels, as if otherwise their loyalties might be suspect. We pledge allegiance to it, before forgetting the rest of the republics values, for which it stands. We insist on proper deference to the flag before every ballgame. We stick it everywhere on patriotic holidays. We fashion the design into t-shirts, jackets and other pop-ware. We fly it over used car lots to advertise deals, deals, deals on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

You have to imagine the booming, cheesy commercial voice.

I’ve lived under two other flags. One thing that you notice, residing outside the U.S. as a civilian expat, is the relative lack of overt patriotic symbolism elsewhere. You just don’t see other national flags plastered on vehicles, stitched onto athletic uniforms or featured anywhere but public buildings. Oh, there are exceptions, naturally. Still, you rarely see a nation’s colors waving over rows of gently pre-owned Skodas, BMWs or Alfa Romeos.

Our enthusiasm for the display of the flag has a lot to do with Pickersgill—and with Francis Scott Key, who turned her piecework into an anthem.

The flag she created flew over Fort McHenry, guarding Baltimore harbor, in 1814. In September of that year, Francis Scott Key, held overnight on a British warship, watched it from a distance as dusk faded.

The British fleet tried to storm the harbor entrance during the night. As Key later wrote, “the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

Key wrapped the flag figuratively around a battle—and that, in literary measure, around the defense of a young nation dedicated to democracy and assailed by nations intent on its destruction. In 1814, the United States of America was not assured of longevity. The nation was weak, fragmented, argumentative and surrounded by enemies.

That’s what gives such an edge to Key’s question, asked as the dawn approached: “Oh, say, does that star spangled banner yet wave?”

The poem he wrote after the battle became one of the most inspiring, compelling and beautiful anthems in the world. It captures hope and vision for the future and a very real moment of doubt, all in one.

So just maybe a singalong by however few participate is a more fitting celebration of the colors than lapel pins or used car sales quotas.