海角大神

Flag Day: What it means

Today is Flag Day. So happy birthday, Old Glory. Long may you wave, o鈥檈r the land of the free and the home of the brave.

What鈥檚 Flag Day? It鈥檚 the American celebration of the birthday of the Stars and Stripes. On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed a resolution 鈥渢hat the flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes of alternate red and white, with a union of thirteen stars of white on a blue field, representing the new constellation鈥�.

So happy birthday, Old Glory. Long may you wave, o鈥檈r the land of the free and the home of the brave.

After all, we鈥檙e a nation that puts unique emphasis on the symbols of its revolutionary past. The flag unites us. celebrates Flag Day. celebrates Flag Day. Little kids waving tiny flags from California to Connecticut celebrate Flag Day.

鈥淣owhere on Earth do citizens fly their national flags, as Americans do, everywhere they live and everywhere they go, from our front porches to our pickup trucks,鈥� writes journalist and historian Marc Leepson in his book

Like many American holidays, Flag Day didn鈥檛 really get rolling until the mid to late 1800s. Like many American holidays, Flag Day has competing people, cities and states that claim to be the first to establish its celebration.

The cites Bernard J. Cigrand, a young schoolteacher from Waubeka, Wisconsin who in 1885 assigned his students to write an essay about what the flag meant to them. Later in life he spent years trying to get Congress to declare Flag Day a national holiday.

Then there鈥檚 William T. Kerr, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania schoolboy who in 1885 founded the American Flag Day Association, . Some also dub him the Father of Flag Day.

On the Washington level, Presidents Wilson and Coolidge both issued proclamations that June 14 be observed as Flag Day. But it wasn鈥檛 until 1949 that Congress passed legislation to that effect and President Truman signed it into law.

So Flag Day has an official date. But it is not a full-blown federal holiday. Federal workers don鈥檛 get the day off (except when it falls on a Saturday or Sunday). Schools don鈥檛 close, mail is still delivered, and offices don鈥檛 shut down. Why is that?

As we鈥檝e written before, the short answer is that it wasn鈥檛 part of the 1968 Uniform Holiday Act. That鈥檚 the law that sets the framework for the 11 official federal holidays and multiple three-day weekends that have launched a million picnics and mattress retailer sales.

So in that sense Flag Day didn鈥檛 quite make the holiday Major Leagues. Thanksgiving, it鈥檚 not.

We鈥檇 guess Flag Day faces the problem that to lawmakers it seemed a bit superfluous. It鈥檚 smack in the middle of bunting-heavy holidays Memorial Day and July 4th. That鈥檚 a lot of red, white and blue. Throw in Veterans Day and the patriotism day-off category starts to look full.

But does that really matter? The flag celebrates the nation鈥檚 components, its states, not the central capitol of Washington D.C. It鈥檚 about a piece of cloth that people use as decoration, insulation, and inspiration. It鈥檚 not complicated. Celebrating it isn鈥檛 complicated. There aren鈥檛 rituals. There aren鈥檛 Flag Day foods. You don鈥檛 have to have guests over. It doesn鈥檛 have 鈥� requirements.

Except one. Take out a flag. Hold it high. And wave.