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The Flag Pole, by David Moore


   I was walking by the Hunt School (School Street School) the other day and I remembered a story about how I saw the flag rescued one afternoon. I was in the fifth grade with Mr. Nourse, on the second floor, in the front of the building. It was the usual custom for the custodian, Mr. Holbrook to stop by each afternoon and take in the flag which flew just outside the center window.

            It was a particular windy spring day and the flag had gotten wrapped around the pole and could not be drawn in. He tried to free it with a broom handle but to no avail. As Mr. Holbrook stood looking out the window trying to figure out a solution to the problem a fellow student spoke up, “Mr. Holbrook I can get the flag in.”

The whole class turned to Walter Hathaway in curiosity, as he volunteered, “I can climb out the window, shimmy up the pole, and unwrap it.”

            Now, Walter was known as an adventurous kid, often in trouble for “kid stuff” so we were not all that startled by his suggestion. To our amazement, the adults in the room were quick to comment but not condemn his crazy idea.

 Mr. Holbrook replied, “Do you think you could?” to which Walter quickly replied, “I can do it.”

 The custodian looked over at the teacher and said that he would fasten a rope around Walter just in case he fell. A fall from that pole, with a rope around him, would have probably sent him crashing through the principal’s window directly below.

To our amazement, the idea was slowly evolving as Mr. Holbrook went to the boiler room and returned with a sturdy rope. With the teacher looking on, he tied the one end around Walter and fastened the other end to the massive radiator just below the window.

Out the window, he went as we stood in anticipation. Some of us stood on our desks for a better view as Walter went out the window and slowly inched up the pole to the flag. He got to the point where it was hung up and sat up on the pole locking his legs around the pole, as calmly as sitting on a log in the woods. He unwrapped the flag with little effort and slid back down the pole. Mr. Holbrook reached out of the window and pulled him back in, to a round of applause from his classmates. Walter was the hero of the day by saving the flag.



Standing there that day, looking up at the empty pole socket on the front of the building, I was still in amazement at what I had seen that day, especially thinking of how it would have been handled today. The empty flag socket, the missing pole, and the flag seemed to go along with Walter’s life. He eventually quit school, joined the Marines, and went off to Vietnam. On his return, his experiences there left him with PTSD and eventually shortened his life. Walter could have died saving the flag, that windy spring day but eventually, it did finally take him away, still a hero in our eyes.

 


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