I found this cardboard flag floating over a kids' classroom earlier this afternoon. Seventh and eigth graders sit beneath it and doodle, sculpt, glue, paste......space. When I went to middle school, the only decoration which graced our walls was a small crucifix; overlording and hovering above us forty two, twelve year old convicts.
I am not much of a flag waver but the American flag, and those gold visors astronauts wore, to protect them from exploding eye sockets, always remind me of Apollo eleven's baby steps; when I was six and missing my front teeth. They are forever etched in my mind as the only colors in that otherwise greyhish universe. As for crucifixes, they remind me of how interminable this kid's universe used to feel and how much like penal colonies these institutions used to be.
In other news: "It means nothing to me. I have no opinion about it, and I don't care". Pablo Picasso on the first moon landing, The New York Times, (1969-07-21)".