Not directly of course but via email to all the state properties including the State park of which I was working security today. The first order of the day for security usually is to run "articles" back and forth to all the gates. Seeing how we have some 30 miles of incredibly beautiful roads on this the largest park in the state, it takes a good while to make 2 trips to all the gates.
It is of course a fantastic way to spend the first half of the day.
As I was leaving the park office, the property manager told me he got an email from the Governors office to have all the flags lowered to half-staff. It was in honor of our service members who were killed in Chattanooga as the latest victims of radical Islamic terrorism.
He walked out with me and he lowered the flag that was in front of the office building he works out of.
I told him I would be honored to lower the rest of the flags in the park.
I got in the DNR truck and headed down the hill.
My first stop was not a gate but a house reserved for the Governor and family when they visit this reverie from big city life.
This old, but well kept cabin has its own overlook. After I took my hat off and lowered the flag I stood back and took this picture.
As I coasted down the steep switchbacks heading to the first gate I contrasted in my mind an image of what Obama deemed worthy of honoring that had stuck in my crawl since the shooting.
Obama finally gave in later this day and had the White House flag lowered after Mitch McConnell, my Governor and others shamed him by lowering the flags under their purview.
I continued making my rounds delivering "articles" and lowering flags around the park and I seemed to remember a flag that was at the Lodge so I headed that way.
There are many guests staying at the lodge this time of year and there was a group sitting on the "porch" within close proximity to the flag, laughing it up and enjoying a rare rain-free morning.
I again took my hat off and lowered the last flag in the park, I got back in the truck and drove around the lawn and looked back on the half-staff flag, but it just didn't look right to me.
It seemed way too low so I stopped the truck, took my hat off again and adjusted it to a level I thought my Governor and Property Manager would approve of.
I turned to leave when I heard someone from the aforementioned group holler out to me (we don't yell down here, we holler).
"Hey what's the flag being lowered for!?" He hollered.
"The Governor ordered all the State properties to lower them to half-staff in honor of the murder victims in the Chattanooga terrorist attack", I hollered back.
"Ok, thanks," he hollered in return.
As I headed back I wondered how they would process this information.
I didn't have to wonder too long because in just a few steps away from the flag I heard their conversations return to the same care free manor complete with laughs and guffaws aplenty.
I turned back and looked while thinking I could understand this if it were a bunch of teens or even young adults. But these were people around my age, a bunch of old farts.
I wasn't expecting wailing and gnashing of teeth, or even the donning sackcloth and ashes.
But maybe a few minutes of conversation diversion to the tragedy in question.
Not that what they did was anything vulgar like going out and playing a round of golf just minutes after seeing an American beheaded by Islamafacists.
No, I just would have felt better if they would have shown just a few seconds of solemn attitude, just long enough for me to get back in the truck and head back up the hill.
Oh, the image that I had in my mind that Obama deemed more worthy than the lives sacrificed by our military......
Like they say, a pictures worth a thousand words.
