Fly the Right Flag

(from a friend)

A story I wanted to tell you was about the BVPS* bus terminal years ago–I’ve been retired for over 6 yrs (Goddess, how time flies!), so it must have been well over 10 years ago. The political climate at the terminal was always an interesting mix of left and right, though usually leaning to the right, but one of the more patriotic types was stumping for putting a flagpole outside the terminal and was drumming up support, I forget whether financial or moral. So I told her, “Sure, I’m all in favor of a flagpole, as long as you fly the Earth flag [the one featuring the photo of the Earth from space] above the American flag.” You could have driven a school bus into her mouth with the look she gave me. So I had to explain that the earth had gotten along just fine for 3 billion years before the U.S. existed and would hopefully get along fine for 3 billion years after the U.S. collapsed, whereas the U.S. couldn’t exist at all without the earth, so which was more important? She just shook her head and said, “_____ … you are weird.” If I said something like that these days, I’d probably be visited by men in black trenchcoats early in the morning.

(* Boulder Valley Public Schools)