Half-staff sunset
Memory and mourning in an American shopping plaza
I emerged from the grocery store one evening last week to find the sky streaked with pinks, oranges, and blues, and the American flag flying half-staff. I had no recollection of what event might have precipitated the flag behind lowered. Did Jimmy Carter die, and I hadn’t heard the news?
When I was a kid growing up in the pre-Internet era, my family would often joke that there needed to be a hotline you could call to find out whether or not a celebrity was dead. Now, we have Google, and all of this knowledge is at our fingertips. When I see a flag flying half-staff, though, I’m usually either driving or otherwise occupied so I don’t take the time to search out the reason.
The day I saw the sunset over the grocery store parking lot was December 6th. Without consulting my phone, I eventually drew the conclusion that the flag was probably half-staff to acknowledge the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, which I thought happened December 6th but was actually December 7th (D-Day was June 6th):
From the governor’s office
Once I returned home, I did do a Google search and learned that in Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey recently ordered that flags in the state be flown half-staff to remember Gloria Lavera Fox, a long time Massachusetts legislator who recently passed away. Healey also called for the flags to be lowered on December 7th in observance of National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day but specified they should remain half-staff through December 10th, the day of Fox’s funeral.
I always thought flags flying half-staff indicated some sort of national tragedy or the death of someone nationally known but apparently these orders are executed on the state level by governors too. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine recently issued an order to fly the flag half-staff in honor of Kirk Schuring, a longtime senator in the Ohio Senate, who passed away recently.
Half-staff or half-mast
The tradition of lowering flags as a symbol of mourning is not limited to the United States and has, in fact, been practiced for centuries. On a ship or boat, flags are flown on a mast, and when they’re lowered halfway, it’s referred to as “half-mast.” According to Wikipedia, in the United States, the term half-staff refers to flags on land while half-mast is used for nautical vessels. In practice, I’ve always heard the terms used interchangeably, and apparently, half-mast is more popular outside of the United States. What do you say: half-staff or half-mast?
Interesting, that picture of the sunset is pretty!