Desecrating the American Flag Doesn’t Make You More Patriotic

We can’t have a national conversation semaphore

At first glance, I thought my eyes were playing tricks, so I called to my dog, Pepper, and made my way down the block. Winter had arrived for real here on the Southern Delaware/Maryland border, and I pulled up the collar of my robe against the wind.

I’d just brought her out to pee when I noticed the flag. The wind pulled my neighbor’s American Flag tight, as if to give me a better look and save me a couple of steps on my trip. It was flying upside down.

I thought at it was a mistake, and half-chuckled, thinking some overenthusiastic adolescent demanded he be allowed to raise the flag and got it wrong in his haste.

In fact, four years ago I would have known it was a mistake and left a note (it was too late to knock). I only got to live in that world for a few seconds before it occurred to me that it wasn’t a mistake, but rather a statement.

A Google search confirmed a spate of inverted flags, and even a few tiffs between neighbors over them. There were clarifications by town or HOA officials letting people know that, while it was a dick move, it was not, in fact, illegal to fly the American Flag upside down.

A New Fear of Conflict

There was a 10-minute period where I considered leaving a note anyway, or even better, knocking on the door to let him know. I imagined double-masking, knocking on the door, and stepping down to the walk. He’d open the door maskless and ask what I wanted.

“Oh, your flag’s upside down,” I’d say and then have the pleasure of recounting the ensuing conversation for the rest of my life.

I don’t know this neighbor well enough to pick him out of a police lineup, but I’m positive he’d know I didn’t believe he hung his flag upsidedown in error from the second he saw me. He’d get that I was needling him. The idea of introducing myself with a political jab didn’t bother me as much as the surety that we couldn’t have a civil conversation about it.

That, and the fear that he’d infect me.