{"id":27122,"date":"2017-07-04T00:38:58","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T07:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=27122"},"modified":"2017-07-04T00:38:58","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T07:38:58","slug":"american-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/american-flag\/","title":{"rendered":"The American Flag Is Flying in My Liberal, Elitist, San Francisco Bay Area Neighborhood Today. Here’s Why."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stars<\/a>
Jon hangs the American flag on the front of our house in honor of the Fourth of July. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jon said as he hoisted our American flag into the bracket on the front of our garage. “Won’t people think we’re right wingers or something?”<\/p>\n

“The right wingers don’t own the flag,” I said. “It’s my flag too.”<\/p>\n

And so there it flutters today, red, white and blue, in honor of Independence Day. Right there on the front of our house for our mostly progressive, liberal, left-winging, San Francisco Bay Area, elitist neighbors to see as they drive by. Maybe they’ll roll their eyes at our flag, or scratch their heads. But I think most will enjoy it like mad and wonder why they don’t have an American flag of their own to fly on the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n

\"Jon<\/a>
Success. The American flag will fly in our neighborhood this year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m too short to reach the flag bracket that’s been mounted on the front of our house since the kids were little and I went out and bought a flag in hopes of passing on to them some of my good, old-fashioned\u00a0Midwestern\u00a0love of country.\u00a0So I have to rely on my skeptical, Berkeley-bred\u00a0husband to do the job. He balks a little each time I ask him to do it. I get where he’s coming from: flying the American flag from your house is so darned . . . corny.<\/p>\n

But I’m good with corn. I agree with journalist<\/a> Tim Marshall. A country\u2019s history, geography, people, and values\u00a0can be summed up and symbolized in a\u00a0flag. “It is invested with meaning, even if the meaning is different for different people.”<\/p>\n

I don’t know what the Stars and Stripes mean to those much-maligned right-wingers. But\u00a0as for me, left-leaning moderate that I am,\u00a0my flag says\u00a0loud and clear, we’ve got something good here, let’s celebrate.<\/p>\n

The flag hung, Jon and I drove off to drink some beers and watch some fireworks with a bunch of — left wingers.<\/p>\n

If this story resonated with you, you might like “An American POW’s Story.”<\/a>\u00a0 Also, “I Decided to Stop Badmouthing Trump. But Will I?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"American<\/a>
Fireworks over the foggy, left-wing elitist San Francisco Bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Stars<\/a><\/p>\n

‘The right wingers don’t own the American flag flag,’ I said as my husband hung the Stars and Stripes from our garage. ‘It’s my flag too.’ Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,30],"tags":[533,1936,1214,34,1937,29,1938,1939,1288,82,1840,282,1940,514],"class_list":["post-27122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-my-changing-family","tag-american-flag","tag-bay-area","tag-berkeley","tag-dont-miss","tag-fireworks","tag-jon","tag-left-wingers","tag-liberal-elitists","tag-midwesterners","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-patriotism","tag-politics","tag-right-wingers","tag-san-francisco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}