I had a fantastic 30th birthday. Aside from having a great time with better friends than I deserve, I got the best present I’ve ever gotten. This:
I mentioned to my friend that I’ve been looking for a print of that picture for a long, long time. It’s the famous, “Rick Monday Saves the Flag” picture. The story is told well at the wikipedia page. Rick Monday is a Marine who had a 19 year Major League career as an outfielder. On April 25, 1976 while he was playing for the Cubs, visiting the Dodgers, a coupla hippies went onto the field to burn an American flag. Just before they put match to lighter fluid sogged flag, he snatched it up and a cameraman caught the moment.
There’s nowhere I know of to get a print of that picture and I’ve looked for a while. My good friend heard of my search and tracked down the photographer (Dead End: He’s dead), the newspaper that printed the picture (Dead End: Bankruptcy), and searched and searched until she found the negative of the picture in the Los Angeles County archives. They blew it up and mailed it to her. She framed it for me and gave me the most thoughtful present I’ve ever gotten. She had to sign releases that it wouldn’t be publicly displayed—if not, I’d include in this post a picture of where it’s hanging in my living room, right below the 2006 Cardinals WS picture.
It’s a treasured thing for me now. It’s funny… My dad, who volunteered for service in the Army during the Vietnam conflict has no problem with people burning flags. I’ve never served anyone but myself but it pisses me off when I see people protesting in that way. Hell, I get pissed off when I see people flying the flag the wrong way. Monday says: “If you’re going to burn the flag, don’t do it around me. I’ve been to too many veterans’ hospitals and seen too many broken bodies of guys who tried to protect it.”
In any case, I had a great birthday and had a blast hanging out with good friends. And tonight, I sang some hilarious songs at karaoke. While on the way to get a new driver’s license, I heard a terrible song that I needed to sing tonight, Last Christmas, by Wham!. Also brought back a classic from the Cutting Crew.