Chicago’s wind is not kind to flags, and I have observed that many outdoor flags need to be replaced. In honor of today, Flag Day, I have a request to make of all who fly an American flag outside–especially business owners:
Please go outside today and look at your flag. If it has been there for more than three months, it probably needs to be replaced, or at least repaired–which is not hard to do. When you do put up a new flag, if you first reinforce the seams and hem off the free end by machine stitching with heavy-duty thread, you will extend the flag’s “pole life” by several months.
Then, as Francis Scott Key wrote in the fourth verse of our national anthem:
“The star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
