Flag Me, Baby

Happy Flag Day! Just the bestest holiday of the entire year!

I spent all night last night hiding tiny flags around the apartment. And this morning, before we went to the gym, I put out Tanya’s flag basket filled to the brim with…flags! She thought that the flag bunny had come while she was sleeping. It was adorable. She’s 28 and still gets as big a kick out of Flag Day as she did when she was a little girl.

Tonight we’re going to sip cocoa, listen to some John Philip Sousa, tell scary flag related stories (like the time I accidentally let a flag touch the ground in front of the local military base color guard and was summarily burned alive, right along with old glory. I feel much better now, thanks.) and open up our flag presents. I hope I get a flag again this year! Then I’ll let Tanya scour the apartment, searching for all the little flags I so painstakingly spent last night hiding.

I just hope that she finds them all. I didn’t keep track of where I put them. One year we didn’t realize that we forgot one. Boy, let me tell you, it was quite a surprise to find it the next year, right where I had hidden it! And man oh man did it stink!

You’ve smelled hell when you stumble across a year old flag hidden in an end table, I tells ya’.

Thank you Betsy Ross, for sewing one heck of an iconic symbol. Even if those jerks in Philadelphia didn’t consider it to be “official.” Even if it’s still not considered “official.” Even if there’s no actual proof that you sewed anything at all (other than a ship’s flag once). Who cares, right? History is written by the winners. And you are one of the victorious, lady! Kudos, Elizabeth Griscom Ross. Your possible but highly unlikely contribution to history may or may not have changed the world!

And thank you too, BJ Cigrand, for inventing the greatest and by far the most exciting holiday known to mankind! If you hadn’t asserted your power as a teacher to force your students there in Wisconsin to pay tribute to the stars n’ stripes, I wouldn’t be here today. And you probably would have been forever remembered not for your remarkable historical value but rather for having a name that reminds people of lascivious sex acts.

Yessiree! Flag Day is one special day.


Fun Fact: Flag day had been celebrated for years but it was not “official” until President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th…uh…Flag Day.

1914 Secretary of the Interior, Crazy Franklin K. Lane, said that his flag talked to him. Crazy Frank's flag had this to say: “I am what you make me; nothing more. I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself.”

You should hear what he claims the toaster told him to do.

And the latest TAM Cartoon is up! Eastertastic! Uh...I mean...Flagsational!