{"id":8854,"date":"2015-10-25T07:03:33","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T13:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=8854"},"modified":"2015-10-25T07:03:33","modified_gmt":"2015-10-25T13:03:33","slug":"prairie-lights-to-flag-wavers-of-all-stripes-i-surrender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/10\/prairie-lights-to-flag-wavers-of-all-stripes-i-surrender\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Lights: To flag-wavers of all stripes\u2014I surrender"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pirate\"<\/a>

No, this wasn’t in Billings, but given what I’ve seen in recent weeks, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.<\/p><\/div>\n

I was driving down Grand Avenue when my windshield was suddenly awash in Old Glory.<\/p>\n

I did a quick look-see in the rearview mirror, ascertained that the right lane was clear and swerved over before I ran into something. Then I saw the problem: A big, black Ford F-250 was flying two American flags so enormous that they trailed more than a car length behind the bed of the truck.<\/p>\n

\"Ed\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick<\/p><\/div>\n

I got alongside the guy, honked, got his attention and motioned for him to pull over. He did, probably hoping for a fight. We both pulled into a parking lot and I flipped a U-turn so we were driver\u2019s window to driver\u2019s window.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s up with the giant flags?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean, what\u2019s up with the flags,\u201d he said. \u201cYou some kinda Iz-lamb or somethin\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no. American through and through. I\u2019m just wondering: why so big and why on your truck? Is there a parade somewhere?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHell, no, there\u2019s no goddamned parade,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is just to show the world I\u2019m proud of my country, proud of my flag and I ain\u2019t afraid of ISIS.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cISIS?\u201d I said. \u201cAre there ISIS guys in Billings?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere better not be. If there are, though, these flags\u2019ll give \u2019em somethin\u2019 to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re probably right,\u201d I said. \u201cBut you should be careful. Those flags are huge, man. I almost crashed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBoo-hoo,\u201d he said. \u201cYou seen that statue of them guys on Iwo? I suppose that flag was too big, too. Anyways, it\u2019s in the Constitution. You can\u2019t restrict my right to fly the flag any way I want.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was going to ask him exactly where in the Constitution that was when an old woman drove past in a late-model Taurus, flying a flag with yellow, green and red bars. (I think it was an elderly woman; all I could see in the driver\u2019s seat was a little halo of silver hair floating above the headrest.) The flag looked vaguely Italian. I told F-250 I had to split and went to chase down the Taurus.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>It wasn\u2019t easy, but half a mile later I was talking to a woman who identified herself as Verda. She told me the flag wasn\u2019t Italian, it was Lithuanian. Why was she flying it?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d she said, \u201cThere are so many people with flags on their cars nowadays\u2014American flags, POW flags, Montana flags and those awful Civil War flags\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean the Confederate battle flag?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, that\u2019s the one. And so anyhoo, I\u2019d thought I\u2019d honor my parents, who came here from Lithuania in 1906. Beet farmers, mostly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you worry that somebody\u2019s going to think you\u2019re unpatriotic?\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked at me with an expression of pity. \u201cOh, good lord, honey. At my age? I don\u2019t care what people think. Besides, I think people are insufficiently aware of the contributions of Lithuanian-Americans. I\u2019m doing my part. I hope you learned something yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yes, ma\u2019am,\u201d I said. \u201cI will spread the word. Depend on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was halfway to where I\u2019d been going earlier when I was passed by a pickup of indeterminate color, caked in mud and flying three, yes three, Confederate battle flags. I couldn\u2019t resist. After I\u2019d managed to pull this truck over, I spoke to the driver, a freckle-faced kid of maybe 25.<\/p>\n

I started with the basics: \u201cWhy the Confederate flags?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere have you been?\u201d he asked back. \u201cThe Confederate flag is all about freedom, rebellion and Miranda Lambert, and telling adults to go to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI like your attitude, but what about slavery and lynchings and German shepherds and centuries of oppression?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a long time ago,\u201d he said, \u201cand it sure as hell wasn\u2019t around here. I was born in Fromberg. That ancient history\u2019s got nothin\u2019 to do with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFromberg?\u201d I said. \u201cThen why fly that Southern flag at all? You might as well fly a Lithuanian flag. Did you know that Lithuanian-Americans\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

Before I could finish, he peeled off in a cloud of smoking tires and burning diesel.<\/p>\n

Back on Grand Avenue, I thought there really was a parade. I saw, in addition to a sea of American flags, a VW van flying two freak flags, a dune buggy sporting a pirate banner, a converted school bus mounted with multiple Burning Man flags, an old Lincoln Continental flying a Crow Nation flag and a cement truck waving two Donald Trump flags.<\/p>\n

It was getting to be too much. I was afraid I was going to be cited for DWOF, driving without flag. I was just about to head to the new flag store in the mall when I decided to hell with it. Instead, I drove home, cut a good-size rectangle out of a white bed sheet, stapled one edge to a pole and attached it to my car.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my own little statement. In the midst of this flag frenzy, I give up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was driving down Grand Avenue when my windshield was suddenly awash in Old Glory. I did a quick look-see in the rearview mirror, ascertained that the right lane was clear and swerved over before I ran into something. Then I saw the problem: A big, black Ford F-250 was flying two American flags so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2434,2738,3280,3281,3282],"class_list":["post-8854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prairie-lights","tag-american-flag","tag-confederate-battle-flag","tag-constitution","tag-ford-f-250","tag-lithuania","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}