Flags

Flags.

American and New Zealand attitudes towards their country’s flag are as different as the night skies they abide under.
A couple of years ago we thought it might be fun to play flags.
Dad very kindly made us a flag pole out of a two by four stud recycled from a redundant shade house.
We bought a cheap New Zealand flag from Arthurs Emporium. (Oh how I miss that get-anything shop ).
It seemed to us that New Years Eve would be an appropriate time to launch our new toy. So midnight December the 31st the six of us, Mum, Dad and a bunch of friends gathered together as the flag ascended to the tune of the National Anthem crawling out of Mums portable tape deck.
I need to pause here and explain that Mums tape deck is legendry among friends and family. She is in her own words, “ in love with it.” It turns up with her at every significant family event, rather like a seeing-eye-dog.
Now if this picture of us all gathered around the flag pole has conjured up solemn images in your mind, you have misunderstood the scene entirely. There was much noise and hilarity .Mum stood quietly, suitably moved and serious. The rest of us cracked jokes about how at her funeral we will put the baby pink boom box on top of her casket instead of a spray of flowers. Ruth didn’t join in the fun either. As a trained florist she felt it wasn’t right to joke about something that could potentially dint future sales. The flag arrived at the top of the pole as God Of Nations finished and waved down at us happily.
It is, however, tough on any flag to live on a property that only escaped being called Windy Ridge by one vote. After about a year it looked like a mother of young children- faded and worn out. I considered tossing it in the rubbish but threw it under the window seat instead.
When we arrived in America we were greeted with flags everywhere.
There were Stars and Stripes in the airport, Stars and Stripes hanging off the houses, little mini Stars and Stripes moving rapidly down the highway on the fronts of cars and backs of motor bikes. I even saw one painted on the trunk of a tree. Then I was glad that in a burst of patriotism, I had impulsively stuffed our flag in my suitcase .
The charming camping ground we arrived at was generously sprinkled with Stars and Stripes hanging brightly , from quaint porches. I was delighted to find our own one folded neatly in our darling little Munch kin cottage. We hung the little, faded, tattered, flag off the front veranda roof so the locals could see that the expected Noo Zeelanda’s had arrived. Next to it we hung the large bright one so they could also see we had friendly intentions.
The first indication we had that the flags were too hot to handle was the man across the roads reaction. He informed us that we had the flag the wrong way round and that was illegal. I scanned his face to see if he was joking but he was dead serious. When Ruth shortly after discovered they have special flag funerals for geriatric flags in the condition of our own little friend, we took them both down. In this land of litigation we need to make friends not enemies. I folded the American flag and put it gently back where we found it. Then I rolled up the New Zealand flag into a ball and stuffed it into the bottom on my suitcase.
When Ruth unearthed the information Americans will not let their flag touch the ground I trembled and was doubly glad we had packed it away. I without hesitation would have without taken our New Zealand flag and covered my lettuce seedlings with it if I thought it might protect them from overnight frost.
It dawned on me we had been very lucky to escape jail and if we wanted to continue to gaze at either hemispheres night sky we had better stop playing with flags in America.