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An English teacher recently sent me a column I wrote, and he had clipped (remember when you clipped things?), almost 30 years ago when a poll showed a majority of Americans supported a ban on burning the American flag as political protest. It is so oddly of the moment I thought I’d share:

FOR WHICH IT STANDS

TOM SHRODER, Herald Tropic Editor

On my desk is a photo of an anti-busing demonstration in Boston in the early ’70s: A white man, his face bent with rage, charges at a black man. In the white man’s hands is a pole he is about to thrust into the black man’s body as if it were a spear. On the end of this pole is the American flag.
About the same time the picture was taken I was sitting in a high-school classroom. Everyone else was standing. Some were reciting the pledge of allegiance. Not me. The football coach, who was monitor of this morning study hall, lunged down the aisle and grabbed me by the shoulder. He pulled me to my feet and dragged me to the principal’s office.
“Son,” he said, looking down at me from 6’3″, “Don’t you love this country?”
When you are 16, political expression is not often articulate. I couldn’t have said then what I now understand: yes, I love this country, but the flag to me is at best an ambiguous symbol for it — a symbol as much of the worst parts of America as of the best.
The flag is what the Seventh Cavalry carried as it thundered into Indian villages and slaughtered unarmed women and children. The flag was what Senator Joe McCarthy waved in his ruinous crusade against political liberals. The flag is what flew from the university buildings when the Governor of Mississippi stood in the doorway to block the passage of a black student. The flag is what mobs of decent Americans were “protecting” when they broke into a peaceful anti-war demonstration and beat the protesters bloody. The flag is what Richard Nixon tried, and nearly succeeded, to hide behind when

and nearly succeeded, to hide behind when his criminal activities and abuse of power were about to be revealed. The flag is what Lt. Calley thought he was serving when he massacred Vietnamese civilians at My Lai.
To me, the flag was more a symbol of the authority of government than of the ideals that limited that authority. It was a symbol that had been too often co-opted by bigots and car salesmen, too often used to bully and corral dissenters, to advance the selfish interests of the powerful at the expense of the powerless. Pledging allegiance to the flag because someone in authority ordered me to would have been the same thing as saying, “My country right or wrong.”
There is a symbol of our country I would never have hesitated to salute — the yellowed parchment of the Constitution. What were the odds that a set of abstract ideas, however noble or carefully drafted, could have survived two centuries of war and depression, the creation of unimaginable wealth and terrible power, the complete transformation of the Earth, the passions and jealousies of generations?
Yet they did. Until now, when — in the name of preventing a lunatic’s melodramatic manipulation of a piece of cloth — the majority of the American public appears willing to hack a gaping hole in the Constitution that may never be mended.
I have to believe that is not true. I have to believe that, polls aside, the vast majority of Americans will eventually understand that the Supreme Court’s decision to grant flag- burning first amendment protection was neither irresponsible nor radical, but the reasoned consequence of what is finest about America.
When I was 16, the best I could do when the coach asked me that question was this: “Yeah, I love this country. And one of the things I love about it is I don’t have to say the pledge of allegiance if I don’t want to.”
I got five hours of detention

A Medieval Plot

When our children were 11 and 9, young enough to still be entirely inside the family circle but old enough to remember, we splurged on a “once in a lifetime vacation” and rented a small farmhouse in southwestern France outside the village of Saint Cyprien. Each day our son and daughter would say goodbye to the donkey that hung around our patio and we’d climb in the tiny rented Renault and drive somewhere in the fairytale beautiful Dordogne River region. On one of these excursions we stumbled on the provincial city of Sarlat.

An accident of history and several centuries of stagnant economy had left Sarlat’s center virtually unchanged architecturally since the days of trebuchets and siege engines and knights galloping over drawbridges. City fathers had woken up one morning in the late 1950’s to realize that, leaning above narrow, winding cobblestone streets and alleys, they had one of the largest collections of intact medieval architecture in Europe. The French government subsidized restoration of the dilapidated ancient structures and the tastefully restored apartments (which half a millennium ago were the residences of wealthy noble families) began, slowly at first, to attract tourists.

Back in 2000, we wandered the town center feeling like time travelers. We bought wooden crusader swords for the kids and hand-spun earthernware pottery my wife and I still treasure. For dinner, we found a traditional French restaurant whose dining room, to our delight, extended into a natural cavern. Our children, now far flung and embarked on lives of their own, still remember that day 17 years later.

And so did my wife and I. Searching for a vacation destination suitably celebratory of our 30^th anniversary, we thought of the magical moments on that long ago day trip and put “apartments to rent in Sarlat” into Google. On our first click, we scored: a recently renovated apartment in a 500-year-old building dead in the center of the old town. We instantly booked it, then reverse engineered the rest of the trip, beginning with a flight to Paris and a boutique apartment near the Place de la Republique for that first jet-lagged night. The next morning, after a glorious buffet breakfast I would estimate at about four thousand calories, we Ubered to the Austerlitz train station and hopped on a TGV express train to Brive, a relaxing four-hour sprint (average speed 75 mph) through the unrelentingly interesting industrial and agricultural landscapes south of the capital. In Brive, we picked up a car a block from the train station and drove the final hour to Sarlat.

As soon as we crossed into the department of Dordogne, the landscape took on stunning beauty even fond memory hadn’t done justice. Fields undulated in a green so intense it vibrated. Hilltops gave way on vistas of sunburst-yellow rapeseed blossoms stretching to the horizon. Every structure, from manor house to farm outbuilding, was made of native golden limestone blocks that seemed to glow in the sunshine. Castles, both ruined and restored, appeared around every curve. Chateaus astraddle vertiginous, cave-pocked limestone cliffs attempted to outdo one another in the beauty and extent of their gardens. It didn’t hurt that the local specialties are foie gras, Bergerac wine and farm fresh produce, all available in an abundance of roadside markets.

Our apartment, up two flights of winding stone steps, had been stripped to the half-timbered walls, modernized and decorated in restrained Pottery Barn.  Large windows looked out over the ancient moss-covered rooftops of layered slate. Just out the front door a narrow alley opened on a Gothic cathedral and the main plaza, ringed by cafes and restaurants. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, the plaza and the main streets of the town sprouted the goody-crammed stalls of the town market. In the old town, and the typical small French provincial city surrounding it, restaurants were abundant, though somewhat limited in variety. Most provided variations on the theme of classic French cuisine with a local accent. On the outskirts of town (still easily walkable from the center) we discovered an absolutely authentic Dutch pankoeken place (a hearty low country take on crepes) and a cozy neighborhood pizzeria.

Though it was stimulating to be in the middle of such history, the smallness of the town – it’s photo-ready back streets could be explored in an afternoon – made us wonder at first about the decision to spend two weeks there. But as we quickly realized, the best thing about locating in Sarlat was leaving it. A 30- to 45-minute drive in any direction brought us to destinations that were each more stunning than the last. Any one of them could have been the highlight of a trip. And forget the destinations. The drives themselves were breathtaking. This part of France apparently has no strip malls, gated housing developments, or major highways. All roads are winding, rolling two-lane forays through the pages of a fairytale. I felt daring driving at 45 miles per hour on these byways while the locals lined up behind me impatiently waiting to pass. But more often than not, we had the roads to ourselves as they narrowed into single lane tracks (more than once we had to back up to let another car squeeze past) through increasingly tiny villages and wooded hills. We often found it hard to believe these rustic tracks were leading to major tourist destinations, but we were never disappointed.

To the south, built into the almost vertical cliffs rising from the lazily curving Dordogne River, is Roque de Gageac, another town of medieval origin whose roads were more like mountain goat tracks. If you have the respiratory fortitude to climb them you are rewarded by views of birds gliding currents along the soaring cliffs above, and the pastoral river valley unwinding between peaked turrets below.

A line of restaurants run along the river’s bank, and during spring and summer you can buy passage on an hour-long guided sightseeing trip in a traditional riverboat called a gabarre. The adventurous can rent canoes to paddle down one of the more spectacular river passages in the world, with a half dozen castles looming on hilltops high above and caves inhabited since prehistory poking into the cliffs cantilevered over the water.

Or you can drive another few minutes upriver to the phenomenal bastide town of Domme, a naturally fortified village built in the 13^th Century on a steep-sided hilltop nearly 800 feet above the river. Domme was fought over repeatedly during the Hundred Years’ War between the French and English, and it’s easy to see why when you consider the view. The main part of the village lies at the very top of the hill along the edge of a sheer cliff commanding sightlines along the entire valley. We stopped for lunch at a small café across from the town hall on the market square where locals once gathered to watch public executions. A modest looking tourist office in the middle of the square is built above the entrance to a large cave system where residents hid during the frequent invasions.

A few minutes drive to the west brings you to the gates of the Chateau de Beynac, the castle of your childhood fantasies, and the setting for a raft of movies, including the romance Ever After and the epic Jeanne D’Arc. There you can tromp around the mostly restored ramparts and imagine barons and counts gathering in the great hall by a fireplace you could torch a redwood in.

East again another bit further brings you to the 18^th Century Chateau de Marqueyssac and its 19^th Century gardens, restored impeccably at the end of the 20^th Century and stretching along the clifftop for a kilometer. The garden paths, meandering through varied with water features and knockout overlooks, doubles as a hike up and down steep inclines through rapidly changing landscapes — from impeccably manicured shrubs and flowers to romantically wild forest. On one cliff edge, overlooking across a wide valley of picturesque farm fields the Beynac chateau, an outdoor bistro served, among other items, wine and salad of insanely fresh local ingredients and toast topped with melted goat cheese. It was so good, we came back twice.

A slightly longer trek just over an hour to the east through countryside unpopulated but for a few farm villages of a half dozen stone houses, brought us to the Gouffre de Padirac, a sinkhole about ten-stories deep that leads into a vast cave system of spectacular stalagmites and stalactites run through by an underground river. The first part of the tour pairs a handful of visitors with their own boatman who poles downriver to the first cataract – a mini falls rushing over the water-smoothed rock floor. There you disembark to climb through a half mile of great halls several hundred feet tall and filled with giant mineral formations still growing with each drip of water.

To the north is the town of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil which bends along the Vézère River, where the 30,000-year-old skeletons of Cro-Magnon man, our first Homo Sapiens cousin, were discovered in the mid 19^th Century. The quaint town is still situated among dozens of caves, many of which have prehistoric wall paintings. The most magnificent cave art is in the Lascaux cave, another 28 minutes up the road in the town of Montignac. When it became clear that endless streams of visitors were causing the paintings to decay, an identical replica of the cave and the art were created for visitors to enjoy, while the real thing remained sealed off to all but researchers. The replica, Lascaux II, is so authentic, it provoked the same awed reverence and thoughts about the nature of humankind the original would have.

On the way back to Sarlat from Les Eyzies we noticed a plain sign along the road with an arrow pointing to the Château de Commarque. By this point, castles popping up unexpectedly was a common occurrence. In fact, they don’t even always have signs. On the way to the Padirac cave we took a wrong turn and found ourselves on a farm road aiming toward a hill with two ruined castle towers sitting atop it without any commemoration other than a blunt private property warning.

But here was one inviting us to visit. We turned off the road and followed a series of ever smaller roads until we were sure we’d made a wrong turn somewhere. But just as we were about to give up we came to a dirt parking lot in a grove of trees with an arrow pointing down a trail through the woods. After about 700 meters the woods ended at a line of exposed limestone reaching to the sky and stretching away into an open meadow. The chateau rose dramatically to the left, looming atop the rocks, while another chateau, this one private, stood out among the heights on the other side of the valley, not so much as a road between them. We paid a nominal admission and climbed up the escarpment all the way to the top where there was a wide array of ruins, from a stone chapel to a soldiers’ barracks and ultimately to the 12^th Century keep. By the end of the 20^th Century, Commarque was a forgotten ruin, almost entirely toppled, buried, or reclaimed by the forest, until a direct descendent of the original lords of the castle began an ambitious private-public restoration of the chateau and exploration of a cave beneath it, filled with prehistoric paintings and sculpture.

Between its bottomless history, its stark beauty and remarkable isolation, that visit to Commarque is something I’ll never forget. Coming on it by accident only made it that much better, and ultimately, those happy accidents defined our stay. On one of our longer day trips we were heading back to Sarlat but still an hour out and in desperate need of a rest stop. But this wasn’t I-95 we were on – unless we wanted to take our chances going au naturel in a field we seemed to be out of luck. Then we came to a crossroads and a little town, picturesque but deserted seeming, of about a dozen two-story stone and stucco buildings shoulder to shoulder along one main street that looked like a set for some WWII movie. At one end was a gothic church spire, and at the other another bland two-story structure with a sign indicating that this was “La Bonne Franquette” restaurant. We parked and peaked in through the open doors to a dimly lit dining room with a handful of tables, all empty but one. We were dubious, but didn’t feel we could ask to use the facilities without ordering something to eat. As we sat the hostess came over and asked if we wouldn’t rather eat out on the terrace. It was more of a vacant lot beneath a 200-year-old flowering tree whose gnarled trunk and branches had been trained to twine over a trellis. Across the lot, looming above another building, was the church steeple.

A teenage boy, no doubt the son of the hostess, waited on us, obviously excited to serve such exotic customers and blushingly try out a few sentences of English. Though there was only red meat on the menu, our literal garçon persuaded the chef to prepare fish, which to our shock came out of the kitchen fresh and flaky and served in a delicious sauce, along with tenderly steamed fresh vegetables and an excellent salad. The sun shone, the church bell sounded, and even though it was mid-afternoon, we couldn’t turn down the coffee. We just wanted to make the moment last.

When our children were 11 and 9, young enough to still be entirely inside the family circle but old enough to remember, we splurged on a “once in a lifetime vacation” and rented a small farmhouse in southwestern France outside the village of Saint Cyprien. Each day our son and daughter would say goodbye to the donkey that hung around our patio and we’d climb in the tiny rented Renault and drive somewhere in the fairytale beautiful Dordogne River region. On one of these excursions we stumbled on the provincial city of Sarlat.

An accident of history and several centuries of stagnant economy had left Sarlat’s center virtually unchanged architecturally since the days of trebuchets and siege engines and knights galloping over drawbridges. City fathers had woken up one morning in the late 1950’s to realize that, leaning above narrow, winding cobblestone streets and alleys, they had one of the largest collections of intact medieval architecture in Europe. The French government subsidized restoration of the dilapidated ancient structures and the tastefully restored apartments (which half a millennium ago were the residences of wealthy noble families) began, slowly at first, to attract tourists.

Back in 2000, we wandered the town center feeling like time travelers. We bought wooden crusader swords for the kids and hand-spun earthernware pottery my wife and I still treasure. For dinner, we found a traditional French restaurant whose dining room, to our delight, extended into a natural cavern. Our children, now far flung and embarked on lives of their own, still remember that day 17 years later.

And so did my wife and I. Searching for a vacation destination suitably celebratory of our 30^th anniversary, we thought of the magical moments on that long ago day trip and put “apartments to rent in Sarlat” into Google. On our first click, we scored: a recently renovated apartment in a 500-year-old building dead in the center of the old town. We instantly booked it, then reverse engineered the rest of the trip, beginning with a flight to Paris and a boutique apartment near the Place de la Republique for that first jet-lagged night. The next morning, after a glorious buffet breakfast I would estimate at about four thousand calories, we Ubered to the Austerlitz train station and hopped on a TGV express train to Brive, a relaxing four-hour sprint (average speed 75 mph) through the unrelentingly interesting industrial and agricultural landscapes south of the capital. In Brive, we picked up a car a block from the train station and drove the final hour to Sarlat.

As soon as we crossed into the department of Dordogne, the landscape took on stunning beauty even fond memory hadn’t done justice. Fields undulated in a green so intense it vibrated. Hilltops gave way on vistas of sunburst-yellow rapeseed blossoms stretching to the horizon. Every structure, from manor house to farm outbuilding, was made of native golden limestone blocks that seemed to glow in the sunshine. Castles, both ruined and restored, appeared around every curve. Chateaus astraddle vertiginous, cave-pocked limestone cliffs attempted to outdo one another in the beauty and extent of their gardens. It didn’t hurt that the local specialties are foie gras, Bergerac wine and farm fresh produce, all available in an abundance of roadside markets.

Our apartment, up two flights of winding stone steps, had been stripped to the half-timbered walls, modernized and decorated in restrained Pottery Barn.  Large windows looked out over the ancient moss-covered rooftops of layered slate. Just out the front door a narrow alley opened on a Gothic cathedral and the main plaza, ringed by cafes and restaurants. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, the plaza and the main streets of the town sprouted the goody-crammed stalls of the town market. In the old town, and the typical small French provincial city surrounding it, restaurants were abundant, though somewhat limited in variety. Most provided variations on the theme of classic French cuisine with a local accent. On the outskirts of town (still easily walkable from the center) we discovered an absolutely authentic Dutch pankoeken place (a hearty low country take on crepes) and a cozy neighborhood pizzeria.

Though it was stimulating to be in the middle of such history, the smallness of the town – it’s photo-ready back streets could be explored in an afternoon – made us wonder at first about the decision to spend two weeks there. But as we quickly realized, the best thing about locating in Sarlat was leaving it. A 30- to 45-minute drive in any direction brought us to destinations that were each more stunning than the last. Any one of them could have been the highlight of a trip. And forget the destinations. The drives themselves were breathtaking. This part of France apparently has no strip malls, gated housing developments, or major highways. All roads are winding, rolling two-lane forays through the pages of a fairytale. I felt daring driving at 45 miles per hour on these byways while the locals lined up behind me impatiently waiting to pass. But more often than not, we had the roads to ourselves as they narrowed into single lane tracks (more than once we had to back up to let another car squeeze past) through increasingly tiny villages and wooded hills. We often found it hard to believe these rustic tracks were leading to major tourist destinations, but we were never disappointed.

To the south, built into the almost vertical cliffs rising from the lazily curving Dordogne River, is Roque de Gageac, another town of medieval origin whose roads were more like mountain goat tracks. If you have the respiratory fortitude to climb them you are rewarded by views of birds gliding currents along the soaring cliffs above, and the pastoral river valley unwinding between peaked turrets below.

A line of restaurants run along the river’s bank, and during spring and summer you can buy passage on an hour-long guided sightseeing trip in a traditional riverboat called a gabarre. The adventurous can rent canoes to paddle down one of the more spectacular river passages in the world, with a half dozen castles looming on hilltops high above and caves inhabited since prehistory poking into the cliffs cantilevered over the water.

Or you can drive another few minutes upriver to the phenomenal bastide town of Domme, a naturally fortified village built in the 13^th Century on a steep-sided hilltop nearly 800 feet above the river. Domme was fought over repeatedly during the Hundred Years’ War between the French and English, and it’s easy to see why when you consider the view. The main part of the village lies at the very top of the hill along the edge of a sheer cliff commanding sightlines along the entire valley. We stopped for lunch at a small café across from the town hall on the market square where locals once gathered to watch public executions. A modest looking tourist office in the middle of the square is built above the entrance to a large cave system where residents hid during the frequent invasions.

A few minutes drive to the west brings you to the gates of the Chateau de Beynac, the castle of your childhood fantasies, and the setting for a raft of movies, including the romance Ever After and the epic Jeanne D’Arc. There you can tromp around the mostly restored ramparts and imagine barons and counts gathering in the great hall by a fireplace you could torch a redwood in.

East again another bit further brings you to the 18^th Century Chateau de Marqueyssac and its 19^th Century gardens, restored impeccably at the end of the 20^th Century and stretching along the clifftop for a kilometer. The garden paths, meandering through varied with water features and knockout overlooks, doubles as a hike up and down steep inclines through rapidly changing landscapes — from impeccably manicured shrubs and flowers to romantically wild forest. On one cliff edge, overlooking across a wide valley of picturesque farm fields the Beynac chateau, an outdoor bistro served, among other items, wine and salad of insanely fresh local ingredients and toast topped with melted goat cheese. It was so good, we came back twice.

A slightly longer trek just over an hour to the east through countryside unpopulated but for a few farm villages of a half dozen stone houses, brought us to the Gouffre de Padirac, a sinkhole about ten-stories deep that leads into a vast cave system of spectacular stalagmites and stalactites run through by an underground river. The first part of the tour pairs a handful of visitors with their own boatman who poles downriver to the first cataract – a mini falls rushing over the water-smoothed rock floor. There you disembark to climb through a half mile of great halls several hundred feet tall and filled with giant mineral formations still growing with each drip of water.

To the north is the town of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil which bends along the Vézère River, where the 30,000-year-old skeletons of Cro-Magnon man, our first Homo Sapiens cousin, were discovered in the mid 19^th Century. The quaint town is still situated among dozens of caves, many of which have prehistoric wall paintings. The most magnificent cave art is in the Lascaux cave, another 28 minutes up the road in the town of Montignac. When it became clear that endless streams of visitors were causing the paintings to decay, an identical replica of the cave and the art were created for visitors to enjoy, while the real thing remained sealed off to all but researchers. The replica, Lascaux II, is so authentic, it provoked the same awed reverence and thoughts about the nature of humankind the original would have.

On the way back to Sarlat from Les Eyzies we noticed a plain sign along the road with an arrow pointing to the Château de Commarque. By this point, castles popping up unexpectedly was a common occurrence. In fact, they don’t even always have signs. On the way to the Padirac cave we took a wrong turn and found ourselves on a farm road aiming toward a hill with two ruined castle towers sitting atop it without any commemoration other than a blunt private property warning.

But here was one inviting us to visit. We turned off the road and followed a series of ever smaller roads until we were sure we’d made a wrong turn somewhere. But just as we were about to give up we came to a dirt parking lot in a grove of trees with an arrow pointing down a trail through the woods. After about 700 meters the woods ended at a line of exposed limestone reaching to the sky and stretching away into an open meadow. The chateau rose dramatically to the left, looming atop the rocks, while another chateau, this one private, stood out among the heights on the other side of the valley, not so much as a road between them. We paid a nominal admission and climbed up the escarpment all the way to the top where there was a wide array of ruins, from a stone chapel to a soldiers’ barracks and ultimately to the 12^th Century keep. By the end of the 20^th Century, Commarque was a forgotten ruin, almost entirely toppled, buried, or reclaimed by the forest, until a direct descendent of the original lords of the castle began an ambitious private-public restoration of the chateau and exploration of a cave beneath it, filled with prehistoric paintings and sculpture.

Between its bottomless history, its stark beauty and remarkable isolation, that visit to Commarque is something I’ll never forget. Coming on it by accident only made it that much better, and ultimately, those happy accidents defined our stay. On one of our longer day trips we were heading back to Sarlat but still an hour out and in desperate need of a rest stop. But this wasn’t I-95 we were on – unless we wanted to take our chances going au naturel in a field we seemed to be out of luck. Then we came to a crossroads and a little town, picturesque but deserted seeming, of about a dozen two-story stone and stucco buildings shoulder to shoulder along one main street that looked like a set for some WWII movie. At one end was a gothic church spire, and at the other another bland two-story structure with a sign indicating that this was “La Bonne Franquette” restaurant. We parked and peaked in through the open doors to a dimly lit dining room with a handful of tables, all empty but one. We were dubious, but didn’t feel we could ask to use the facilities without ordering something to eat. As we sat the hostess came over and asked if we wouldn’t rather eat out on the terrace. It was more of a vacant lot beneath a 200-year-old flowering tree whose gnarled trunk and branches had been trained to twine over a trellis. Across the lot, looming above another building, was the church steeple.

A teenage boy, no doubt the son of the hostess, waited on us, obviously excited to serve such exotic customers and blushingly try out a few sentences of English. Though there was only red meat on the menu, our literal garçon persuaded the chef to prepare fish, which to our shock came out of the kitchen fresh and flaky and served in a delicious sauce, along with tenderly steamed fresh vegetables and an excellent salad. The sun shone, the church bell sounded, and even though it was mid-afternoon, we couldn’t turn down the coffee. We just wanted to make the moment last.

Writers are performers without an audience. Their performance is consumed by people unknown to them in privacy, leaving a writer to imagine what that might look like. Well I don’t have to imagine anymore, because I saw this on Instagram of a young reader halfway through my book Old Souls:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHnMhF7DAiQ/?tagged=tomshroder