LIVERMORE FALLS – Scores of American flags sat outside, piled on a table in the warm fall sunshine. Their destiny: into the fire.
American Legion George Bunton Post 10 in Livermore Falls hosted a disposal ceremony Sunday morning attended by local Boy and Girl Scout troops and several veterans. About a dozen Scouts participated in the ceremony by presenting unserviceable flags for proper disposal in a fire.
Ten-year-old Nina Chavez of Livermore Falls said she learned it is important to respect the flag, which represents freedom to her.
Sitting beside her in the legion hall after the ceremony, her friend and fellow Girl Scout nna Sanborn, agreed.
“It represents our home,” said the 11-year-old from Livermore. “We can look up to it.”
Jacob Roy of Jay wore his father’s red beret for the ceremony. Saved from his father’s Boy Scout days in the 1980s, the hat is a “good luck charm,” he said.
The talkative middle child of three said the flag honors America and deserves respect.
“It’s like you honor and respect the flag by not letting it touch the ground,” he said. “It is improper to tear them up and throw them in the dump,” he added, referring to a disposal ceremony in Rumford two years ago that landed thousands of flags in a dump.
Scouts’ mission
According his parents, the Boy Scouts who attended that ceremony two years ago were upset when the flags were discovered. They were intended for an incinerator, but instead ended up in a large dumpster.
And the Roy boys are seemingly on a mission to educate their friends and neighbors about the proper display and care of the country’s emblem.
Joseph Roy, now 13, was in fifth grade when he noticed a custodian at the middle school removing the flag from the pole at the end of the day. The school employee draped the flag over a railing. Roy offered to show the man how to fold and store the flag properly but was rebuffed. So he went to the principal. As a result, every student in the fifth grade was shown how to fold the flag properly, and they took turns raising it and removing it each day.
His younger brother, Jacob, said he was frustrated recently when he noticed a flag flying in front of the Elks lodge in Augusta at night. There were four lights trained on a sign, but not one lighted the flag, he said in an exasperated tone. Officially, it is improper to fly a flag at night without lighting it.
Although the family missed church Sunday to attend the flag ceremony, Jacob Roy said he felt it was warranted.
“God would approve of disposing the flag properly,” he said.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
