There is something about the American highway that breeds hyperbole. Everything is the ‘best’ or the ‘first’ or the ‘biggest,’ no citation necessary. I’ve eaten hundreds of the ‘best’ burgers and I can tell you they vary pretty distinctly in quality. The first U.S. ice cream parlor seems to exist in every state. The biggest coffee mug in the world, well, I guess I haven’t seen another one bigger.
They have me there.
‘The nation’s largest American flag remains relatively unvisited in comparison to our country’s better known patriotic sites. For that reason, it seems to appeal to a niche crowd, a crowd you might describe as hipster patriots- people who seek out the ‘truer’ essences of what it means to be American. At its most simple, this seems to be a reverence of small, historical relics- the personal objects of lesser known presidents, remnants of war, and obscure trivia- mirroring, in many ways, the Catholic idolization of saints. Layered on top of this is a strange game of one-upmanship that the author could only tolerate for several minutes before ceasing research altogether.
This aside, the flag is worth seeing if only for its enormity. The few employees are tight-lipped about the origins of the flag, about where and how it’s stored, and about the materials used make it. It is the author’s opinion that they simply do not know.’
If you’ve visited Mt. Rushmore you’ll know that the place isn’t exactly centrally located. You’ve got to drive quite a good distance from the nearest city (passing through smaller towns along the way) and even within the park you find yourself looking at the presidents from a long ways off. You putz around the gift shops and scoff at food prices and then you take off.
This flag place is much the same.
Located on the floor of a valley, a 90 minute drive and a very long walk from the nearest motel, the home of the largest American flag appears to be a small cement hut and a set of bleachers. I arrive to find a small group of people already waiting, bundled against an autumnal cold and making small talk. By the bleacher spacing I make out mostly singles and couples among them. One family, with a few small kids, seems to be the odd one out.
“One?” the man asks when I approach the ticket hut.
“One,” I say, “Where do you keep this thing if it’s so big?”
“Up over the hill,” he says, “We’ve got an unfurl scheduled every hour on the hour.”
I look at my watch and see it’s just a few minutes till 3:00pm.
“What happened to your arm?”
“What?”
“Your arm.”
“Car accident,” I tell him, trying to straighten my arm at my side.
“The rash.”
“Oh, uh, you know. The cast came off recently.”
He hands me my change and I try to give him a dirty look. Are we just commenting on outward appearances these days? What if I had been self-conscious? I see my face in the ticket counter glass and it looks as pleasant as ever, hardly conveying disapproval at all. I try again in the reflection.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” I say, checking my watch again and moving to the bleachers.
There isn’t much to this place, or else, maybe it’s the offseason. A vacant hot dog stand rusts on the edge of the woods and I see a dumpster, much too large for an operation this size. A squirrel scurries past my feet, carrying an empty bag of chips in its teeth. There is a mild breeze and the smell of pine.
There is enough room in the stands that I can sit alone comfortably and wait. Among the crowd I note a lot of patriotic undertones- little flag lapel pins, star spangled trims, and Liberty Bell earrings. There is no garish Americana here, nothing that speaks quite as loudly as Uncle Sam hats or aging eagle tattoos.
“And Garfield was the first president to use the phone.”
“Bell got the phone running in 1876 when Grant was in office.”
“Yeah, and Hayes was responsible for putting one in the White House, what are you talking about?”
My instinct is to tune these people out but I’m planning to ask one of them for a ride. I could walk, if I wanted, but it will get dark before I make my way back to civilization from here and it’s a hell of a lot easier getting a lift away from these places than it is to hitch a ride to them.
“I saw the Liberty Bell last year,” I tell the woman with the earrings, “Pretty amazing piece of history.”
“You didn’t fucking see the Liberty Bell,” she snarls, “It’s been in storage since 2013.”
She’s right, of course. I wasn’t anywhere near Philadelphia last year.
“Time must have gotten away from me…” I say, “Did you get your earrings there?”
“I made these.”
“When did you break them?” I joke, but by then she’s turned away.
I look down at my shoes.
It will probably be a long walk back.
“Jesus!” somebody exclaims.
I look up, up toward the valley wall, and I see something insane. A massive structure has begun to rise from the hillside, slowly blotting out the sky there. As it pulls forth, the hut’s little PA system cracks to life with the chords of the national anthem, confirming that this is indeed the show.
The flag is incomprehensible. It is thick enough that no light passes through and so, with the sun behind it, appears to be a great black lid drawing itself over the entirety of the valley. It would have to be miles long, I realize, just to get halfway across. Its shadow nears and some high-up gust of wind sends a ripple through the massive banner. The woman near me, the one with the bells, cries silently.
The crowd, as a whole, is falling apart. One man appears to have passed out, his partner desperately gripping his hand. The children have frozen, their attention divided between the flag itself and their parents fearful eyes. Several people have fled, have left the bleachers and turned their faces to the earth, refusing to look at the thing. They cover their eyes as the shadow engulfs us, cover their ears as the tinny notes of the anthem sneak through the air.
There is a distant sound like thunder, like fabric rent by a storm. I watch as a corner of the flag whips across the hillside, levelling trees and marking the ground with a swooped gash. There are patches all over the valley, I see now, places where the flag has accidentally touched down.
I join others in a cry of surprise as sunlight breaks back into the sky. The flag, keeping us in darkness for mere seconds, is relenting. It pulls back over the hill, a behemoth assimilated into the horizon.
Thick silence fills the places there once was music. A man nearby takes a deep, unsteady breath. Another laughs nervously, rubbing his eyes underneath the dark frames of his glasses. I smell a burning cigarette.
The silence remains on the ride back into town, in the passenger seat of an old car. The woman with the Liberty Bell earrings drives with a steady hand and unblinking eyes. The forest rushes by and I look at the dash. We’re traveling just five miles over the speed limit- always five miles over the speed limit. Civilization, when it greets us, seems thin and petty.
-traveler
