Half-Mast Is The Position, Roughly Halfway Down A Flagpole, To Which A Flag Is Lowered As A Sign Of Respect When An Important Person Dies...Or Is It?

 

I drove past our Post Office the other day and the flag was at Half-Mast...Again. The city I live in could save a lot of taxpayer money when buying and installing Flagpoles in the future by buying poles that are half as long as they used to buy.

(Maybe the above wise crack does not make a lot of sense but I’m going to forge ahead with this Blog Posting anyway.)

There was a time when we saw a flag on a flagpole at half-mast and we would turn on the radio to hear about which one our Leaders, Explorers, Sports Figures or Rulers had died.

We could also look around and we would usually see a newsboy with a bunch of newspapers under his arm holding one of them up above his head and shouting, ”Read All About It!” and, of course, we would rush up and give a nickel to the shouting boy so we could Read All About It.

Today we are treating our Flagpoles like Participation Trophies. We give out trophies to bewildered children and hoist up flags half-way up flagpoles like they were not important.

Let your mind wander with me for a few moments. Think how much less time we would have to teach our children Reading, Writing and Arithmetic if we began each school day by calling every student up on the stage in the school’s auditorium to receive their Perfect Attendance For Today Certificate.

If Everything Is Special, Nothing Is Special

Before I came to an understanding about how un-special the Flagpole had become I wasted a lot of times trying to find out what momentous happening had happened. I understood how far we had slid down the flagpole went one day I rushed over to City Hall, burst into the Mayor’s Palatial Office and shouted, “What momentous happening has happened?!”

There sat my Mayor with an almost empty box of Kleenex in front of her patting her mascara dripping eyes as she replied, “Cuddles has died!” I shouted back, “What’s a Cuddles?” She moaned back, “My Cat!”

Would I kid u?

Smartfella