FLAG DAY 2000: LONG MAY IT WAVE OVER A FREE LAND

Today is Flag Day, a nearly forgotten commemoration between two big holidays: Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

Happily, we don't forget Flag Day holiday in Cape Girardeau County, where Boy Scout troops go to the trouble of placing American flags along major thoroughfares in our communities and where countless patriotic citizens fly Old Glory from their homes and businesses as well.

Actually, Flag Day isn't an official, legal holiday, but it has long been custom that the president proclaims an observance every year. Today's date, June 14, is selected to commemorate the day in 1777 when the Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the United States. The observance was first held in 1877 to salute the centennial of the selection of the flag.

Living as we do in a time when the U.S. Supreme Court has extended constitutional protection to flag-burning as protected speech, it is more important than ever for the rest of us to honor Old Glory.

Here's to Flag Day as a worthy and quintessentially American celebration. And long may she "wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."