A French Fourth
Atlantic, The, July, 2001 by Charles Trueheart
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A long about this time every year, as Independence Day approaches, I pull an old American flag out of a bottom drawer where it is folded away—folded in a square, I admit, not the regulation triangle. I've had it a long time and have always flown it outside on July 4. Here in Paris it hangs from a fourth-floor balcony visible from the street.
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I've never seen anyone look up, but in my mind's eye an American tourist may notice it and smile, and a French passerby may be reminded of the date and the occasion that prompts its appearance. I hope so. For my expatriated family, too, the flag is meaningful, in part because we don't do anything else to celebrate the Fourth. People don't have barbecues in Paris apartments, and most other Americans I know who have settled here suppress such outward signs of their heritage—or they go ...
