Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 4, 1990 TAG: 9007040056
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
We're not talking about the burger-bar proprietors, convenience-store operators and car dealers who vie for the honor of flapping the biggest flag over their commercial establishments.
We're talking about the private citizen who quietly displays the colors every day.
A stroll down Broad Street in Salem is a journey into Norman Rockwell's America: The picturesque homes are freshly painted, the lawns neatly clipped, the stars and stripes in abundant evidence. Many of the houses are no newer than turn-of-the-century, and the people who live in them lean toward antique furnishings.
George and Margaret Vaughan say their neighbor, Jenny Proctor, was the first to permanently unfurl Old Glory on the street in 1974. The flag Proctor and her husband, Richard, first flew on the balcony of the 1868 neoclassical home once waved over the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
"I worked on Capitol Hill for seven years, and one of my responsibilities was to see that a flag was raised over the Capitol Building when constituents wrote in for one," says Proctor.
"When I left, I asked for a flag and they ran it up. Everywhere I lived, I flew that flag. After two or three years, it faded and I retired it."
The former secretary to several senators on the Hill, Proctor has replaced that flag several times and has received a reward from the auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars for displaying the flag every day. Several of Proctor's relatives served in the military, and she says patriotism is the reason she displays the flag.
"The most poignant picture I've ever seen is the one of the men raising the flag on Iwo Jima. The flag makes you feel good to know you're an American," Proctor says.
Next door, George and Margaret Vaughan fly the flag under the shelter of the front porch on their two-story white frame house. They took the cue from Proctor a few years back.
"We used to fly it on special occasions. Then Jenny flew it all of the time. I put this one under shelter so I wouldn't have to move it all the time," says George Vaughan.
"Four brothers and I served under that flag in World War II," says Vaughn. Like many, he has followed the recent controversies about flag burning: the Supreme Court ruling that defended it as a form of free speech, the failure of a Constitutional amendment to outlaw it.
"I question whether we should change the First Amendment," Vaughn says. "But I respect the flag a lot."
Transplanted Oklahoman Cherie Riddell noticed the flags on the homes up and down the street and decided to fly her own: "We just like it out there. We thought it looked neat on all of these homes."
Meanwhile, some of the neighbors provide their own variations.
Realtor Nancy Burton flies the flag and adorns a Christmas tree - a permanent fixture on her widow's walk - with miniature flags.
"I decorate the tree with flags beginning Memorial Day. That takes me through Flag Day and the Fourth of July," Burton says. The flags stay on the tree through Labor Day when Burton begins to redecorate for Halloween.
"Of course, we're very patriotic, and it looks nice. The in thing here is to fly the flag."
Across the street, Bob and Wendy Rotanz fly the American flag on one side of their door and the Virginia flag on the other. She's from Kentucky and he's from New York, so Virginia has become the family's home state.
"We have a Virginia daughter, and we're going to have a Virginia something or another in a few weeks," says Wendy Rotanz, who is expecting a baby.
The American flag they fly was a gift from Bob's mother and was flown over the U.S. Capitol on the couple's anniversary. "Growing up in Kentucky, we had flags out all summer. This house just seemed to be conducive to flying the flag," Wendy says.
Broad Street isn't the only red, white and blue neighborhood in the valley.
Commander William Bagbey of Southwest Roanoke hoists the colors each morning on a free-standing pole in his front yard and strikes them at sunset.
"The Army takes them down at 5. I take them down at night," says Bagbey, a 21-year veteran of the Navy. "I love the flag, and I love to see it flying out there."
Bagbey also provides the flag that flies in front of the Roanoke City Library in memory of his first wife, who died in a car wreck in 1983.
In Wytheville, an ex-Marine named Hayes Groves strikes the colors each day and folds the flag according to the prescribed method.
"I grew up flying the flag at my house. I put it on a parity with my Christianity," Groves says. "Flying the flag is my personal way of feeling comfortable with my own freedom."
Another ex-Marine, Ralph Hambrick of Roanoke flies the flag with as much pride if not as much ceremony.
"Jim Olin sent me a flag and I put it to use," says Hambrick. "If it gets faded, I get another one. I can't climb up there like I used to."
Hambrick is proud of the certificate the VFW awarded him for daily display of the flag.
John Hall, principal of Salem High School, flies a VMI flag on one side of the door of his house and an American flag on the other.
"I'm not sure why I started. It certainly wasn't anything lofty," Hall says. "I think I saw one on someone's house. But a patriotic thread runs through it. That's my fifth flag out there."
Hall, a 1965 graduate of Virginia Military Institute, says a peace flag replaces the VMI flag each Christmas.
Though she doesn't have any military affiliation, Betty Boothe of Broad Street could be speaking for all those who display the flag each day when she says: "The flag hanging on our house just feels like it should be there. It gives you a good feeling."
by CNB