Commentary
Four days a year a special American flag flew from a tall loblolly pine in my family’s front yard.
Every Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day and every Veterans Day, my father would get up early then wake me, my sisters, and younger brother.
We would traipse into the front yard, yawning in Houston’s early morning humidity, in summer standing barefoot on St. Augustine grass, on Veterans Day wearing shoes in November’s cooler weather.
Then Dad would tie the flag to the rope, one of us would give the rope a pull, and the huge wall of red, white, and blue cloth would rise and billow as it rose, the only sound a pulley 35 feet up the pine creaking with each tug….