Begin forwarded message:
From: Halltennis@aol.com
Subject: Final Draft of “The Flag” Story
Date: July 6, 1997 at 09:02:08 EDT
To: MTENNIS@aol.com
Cc: carytenn@slip.net
MEL;
I THINK THIS IS THE FINAL DRAFT OF THIS LITTLE STORY. I CANNOT CALL IT A
POEM, DESPITE THE FORMAT USED. IF YOU FIND ANYTHING THAT IS INACCURATE,
WOULD YOU LET ME KNOW? I DO NOT WANT TO DISTORT HISTORY, JUST MAKE NOTE OF
IT. — 7/6/97- hallIntroduction To The Story of The Flag
This is a family short story,
(followed by ten footnotes).
The memory of a ten year old kid,
Sixty-nine years after the end of the The War.Here are some of the characters:
Our grandmother, called “Cot” by all her grandchildren.
She had been a blond “cottonhead” girl and the nickname stuck.
At age seven The War ended
And the occupation by Yankee troops began.
In this story, she is our 87 pound matriarch
and looks just like her scrawny twin brother Bill.Ant Dottie was a neighbor
And a friend of my father. Not a real aunt.Kids– most summers up to a dozen of us cousins
were at the old home place; some for years at a time,
depending on our parents’ situation.Cot’s family (the Hawkins) and her husband’s family
(the Tennis’) were neighbors for three generations
before Bigdaddy and Cot, both at age 32, married, prospered
and got five kids.NOW, THE STORY CALLED “THE FLAG”
1.
Ant Dottie made it, he said.
It was a square flag.
Thirteen stars on crossed bars.
The flag of revolt.2.
“Comes the revolution…” we kids said.
We’d never heard of The Wobblies,
We meant the one where we’d almost beat the yankees.3.
We are going to put up a flag pole at the end of the dock, and fly The Flag,if Cot doesn’t mind.
4.
It was a defiance to the yankee’s Fort Monroe, across The Creek,
To see if they would turn their big guns on us
And shoot it down.Daddy said they would not.
We only half believed him.
It was like we were taking a dare.Ant Dottie had made it for us, and we had a twent- foot
pound-pole to fly it from.
We would show those yankees The Flag.5.
We kids knew the story*** about Cot’s father:
Wouldn’t run the lighthouse the way the yankees wanted;
Was imprisoned in the Fort
Several years before Jeff Davis got there.6.
We had the spirit of The Flag.
Ant Dottie was like Betsy Ross in the painting,
And Old Barbara Fritchie in the poem.
Brave to sew The Flag.Cot looked at it, the second day it was up,
Standing on the porch, squinting against the morning sun.
Said nothing and went inside.She had told us:
She and her twin brother Bill*, climbing a tree
To hide from the yankee soldiers.
She was just a kid then; like us.I could see why she hated Mr. Lincoln. It was personal.
At school they made Old Abe a hero.
The teachers’ stories about Lincoln were a lot like the things Cot told us
about her father.
He was the strongest, the fastest runner, the best wrestler
The smartest man in the County, was what she said.
Anyway, the Flag was up there, night and day, all summer.7.
When summer ended, Daddy drove Sonny and me back home
To Mom in Washington.
Ant Dottie came with us to visit relatives in the city.
I never knew why we called her Ant.
Her son Jimmy was my friend.
Aunt Rose, Grandmother’s sister, was Aunt Rose, And Aunt Grace was an Aunt,
too.When we got to the apartment on Calvert Street
And unloaded the car
Mom came down to help.
When Daddy introduced Ant Dottie, I knew something was wrong.
The stiff look on Mom’s face.
Mom never mentioned it to us.8.
I didn’t tell her about Jimmy and me taking his father’s .45
Out from under the pillow on their bed,
Upstairs in the stone house, where I was born,
And the loud Bang
When it went off, and the smoke, and the hole in the ceiling,
And the people running to see.9.
I always thought that was the gun Jimmy’s father used
To shoot himself.Next summer
I found the flag up in the attic.
Faded and ragged.
It was glued, not stitched, and the stars were peeling loose,
Their edges frayed and sad.(The End)
Now,Ten Annotations to The Story of The Flag.
Number One.
One evening that summer, just before dinner was served, Daddy showed us the
new flag. It was bright red with a blue cross and white stars.Number Two.
Cousin Jack from Richmond said
–The battle flag had a white bar across the end.I think it was the first time I had ever seen the Confederate Flag.
Number Three.
We knew we didn’t like Yankees; they shouldn’t have won the war.
“Next time” was the unstated dream.Number Four.
Daddy said he and Uncle LeGrande would put up a flag pole at the end of the
dock.
He thought Madam wouldn’t object.Number Five.
We knew the big coastal defense guns at Fort Monroe. Sometimes when the Army
fired them, a window would break or a cup would fall off a shelf. Then, after
the paperwork, the Fort would pay for the damage.I could imagine the soldiers loading into a boat and coming across the Creek
and tearing down the Flag and doing something terrible to us, like real
yankees in uniform.Number Six.
Lots of times, after dinner, we would sit around the table and Daddy would
ask Cot questions. Like, how they called the dog and where the sheep browsed
out in the salt marsh. I can still see that little feice (sp?) dog going over
the fence to bring in the sheep.
The old Grandview lighthouse was still there, though the house where Cot had
been born was washed away by the storms.Number Seven.
Daddy and Uncle Le Grand called her Madam, we called her Cot. Uncle Jim
sometimes called her Pete. He had a nickname for everybody. His brothers
were Adelphus**. We would play the record about “Mine eyes have seen the
Glory,” and run and hide. Cot yelled at us to turn it off — It is a
terrible yankee war song, she said.Number Eight.
Sonny and I lived in Washington with Mom and Grandfather and Grandmother and
Uncle Herb. Brother Bill wasn’t quite old enough to come down to Virginia
with us that summer. He was born a few weeks before the big stock market
crash, about eighteen months after we moved up to Washington. Seven of us
lived in the two bedroom apartment, and Sylvia came every day to cook and
clean.Number Nine.
Bigdaddy got the buildingfrom Fort Monroe when the Army took down an unwanted gun emplacement.
He was chairman of the County Commission and founder of the Bank, so they
would want to work with him.Number Ten.
Later on, Ant Dottie moved to a small house we owned on the other side of
town. Sometimes Daddy would give me a bottle of gin in a paper bag and I
would get on my bike and take it to her as a gift.THE END, AT LAST.
*I do not remember Cot mentioning Uncle Bill in this context, but the story
needed him in here at this point.
**Actually, LeGrand and Melvin used “Adelphus,” but I needed it for social
ambiance; and, it fits easily here.
***Not true: I never heard the story till Grace told me a few years ago.5.6.96/ht
L–h.
