flag

Six Sentence Story — Carrying the Flag

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Written for the Sunday Six Sentence Story prompt from Girlie on the Edge, where the prompt word is “flag.”

Joe lived for Saturday mornings, when the grass was still damp and the flags snapped like tiny battle standards at his hips.

He didn’t have the bulk, the physical strength, or the stamina to play traditional, full-contact football, but every week he’d jog onto the field grinning, convinced this was the day he’d finally pull off the perfect end‑zone dive.

His friends joked that he treated flag football like the Super Bowl, but Joe never minded — passion was part of the fun.

Even when he tripped over his own feet or missed an easy catch, he bounced back up laughing.

What mattered most to Joe was the rush of the play, the bright arc of the ball, the feeling of being fully alive in motion.

And every time he walked off the field, sweaty and exhilarated, he already couldn’t wait for next week’s kickoff.

Image generated using ideogram.ai.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with flag football, it’s a non-contact version of American football where, instead of tackling the ball carrier to the ground, defenders stop the play by pulling a flag from the runner’s belt. It keeps the core idea of advancing the ball and scoring touchdowns, but with far less physical contact.

WDYS — A Special Day

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“It was rewarding this morning to see thousands of people filling the streets in protest of Trump and the havoc he is causing in the country,” Alex said.

“Yes,” Deena said. “It’s about time Americans took to the streets to demonstrate against the policies and actions that megalomaniac has taken and that his GOP sycophants have endorsed. Maybe the American people are finally waking up to what’s happening and protests and demonstrations like today’s will take place all across the nation.”

“Did you see that dog carrying the American flag in its mouth during the March?” Alex asked.

“Yes, and I got a picture of it on my phone. So cute,” Deena said. “I am going to post it on Instagram later.” she handed Alex the phone with the photo on it.

“Yep, that’s the one,” Alex said, handing the phone back to Deena.

“And Alex, this place you picked out for us to stay tonight is lovely. Just look at this view. It’s stunning,” Deena said.

“Deena, I don’t know what the future for our country will be,” Alex said, “but whatever it is, I want you to be by my side, standing tall next to me, fighting to restore the America we grew up in and love.”

He reached over and held out his hand. She took his hand in hers, and said with eyes welling up, “You don’t have to ask, Alex.” My answer is yes, yes, yes!”

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. First photo credit: Elijah Pilchard @ Unsplash. Second photo credit: Peter Thomas @ Unsplash. Note that Peter’s photo did not have Alex and Deena sitting at the table. Here is Peter’s actual photo that Sadje gave us.

I gave ChatGPT this instruction: “Add a man and a woman sitting across from each other with happy expressions on their faces and holding hands.” And voila: Alex and Deena.

Amazing, huh?

SoCS — False Flag

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“Colonel, I think we’re looking at a false flag operation,” Captain Charles Reynolds told his superior officer.

“Why do you think that, Charles?” Colonel Bradbury asked. “Do you have definitive evidence?”

“Nothing definitive, sir. Not yet, anyway. But my team is working on it,” Reynolds answered. “As you know, sir, the intent of a false flag attack is to shift the blame elsewhere. There are clear characteristics in the hack that point to Iran, but while the techniques applied in this attack are typically used by Iranians, my team has uncovered some telltale signatures in the code that indicate the Russians may be behind it. They, the Russians, sir, are very good at emulating the techniques, and even languages, used by the groups or countries they are trying to frame, which in this case, is Iran.”

“Yes, Charles, that is what the Russians do,” said Bradbury. “They stage their attacks in such a way that it looks to their victims and to the world that another country is behind the cyber attack. They’re very good and masking who’s actually responsible.”

“Indeed,” Reynolds said. “While there are a number of countries that have engaged in this sort of attack, by far the most prolific practitioner is Russia, using its GRU intelligence service and hackers associated with it.”

“What do you think their aims are, Charles?”

“Best case, sir, it’s just to annoyingly infiltrate our systems in order to demonstrate that they can get at us,” Reynolds said. Then he swallowed hard and said, “Worst case, they can potentially bring about widespread chaos by shutting down all electronic communications and infrastructure systems in the country.”

“Well godammit, Reynolds, we need to take action to prevent something like that from happening,” Bradbury barked. “You need to confirm whether this is, in fact, a Russian false flag attack or if it is actually the Iranians. The President is going to want to strike back at whoever is responsible and that strike has to directed at the right adversary or we’re all going to be in deep shit.”

Captain Reynolds crisply saluted Colonel Bradbury. “Yes sir, right away sir,” Reynolds said, as he spun around and left the colonel’s office.

Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where we are asked to use the word “flag” in our post.

Who Won the Week? 11/29/2020

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FWWTWIt’s time for another Who Won the Week prompt. The idea behind Who Won the Week is for you to select who (or what) you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

Back in 1970 I was a long-haired hippie. I was proud of my long hair. It was my freak flag, so to speak, and had no intention of getting it cut, even though my boss at a job I had just gotten at a local RadioShack was putting some pressure on me to at least trim it back in order to be more “presentable” at my customer-facing job.

I was debating on my drive home from work whether or not to succumb to my boss’ demand that I cut my hair, when I heard this song from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on the radio.

After hearing David Crosby’s song, I decided to quit my job at RadioShack.

Speaking of RadioShack, do you remember RadioShack? It used to be a fixture at large shopping malls, small strip malls, and small town main streets across America for decades. At its peak, it operated stores under either the name RadioShack or Tandy in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.

But between large electronics box stores like Best Buy, and online sites like Amazon, RadioShack fell on hard times. Somewhere along the way, “The Shack” got lost. Even with the early successes of its TRS-80 (sometimes referred to as the “Trash-80) personal computer, RadioShack was not able to capitalize on the PC boom that began in the mid-’80s. It also found itself largely on the outside of the portable device revolution as it drifted toward irrelevancy. In February 2015, RadioShack Corporation filed for Chapter 11 protection under United States bankruptcy law after 11 consecutive quarterly losses.

Well, after two bankruptcies, it seems that RadioShack has, once again, been pulled from the brink. An entrepreneurial investment firm hopes to make RadioShack competitive again, this time online, rather than with brick and mortar stores on street corners or in shopping centers. The plan is to build a vast online marketplace on top of the RadioShack brand.

So, in its effort to resurrect itself. I’m designating RadioShack as this week’s Who Won the Week winner. Good luck, RadioShack. Maybe the third time is the charm.

What about you? Who (or what) do you think won the week?

In addition to my Who Won the Week prompt, this post included the words “hair,” “flag,” and “home from today’s Three Things Challenge prompt from Di at Pensitivity101, and the word “succumb” from Fandango’s One-Word Challenge.

3TC — Patriotic Outfit

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8C682391-0999-44EC-BB16-0CDC30D19A5B“Oh, honey, that’s such an honor,” Martin’s mother said when he told her that he’d been picked to hold the flag at his third grade class assembly.

Anna’s excitement abated, though, when Martin told her that he wanted to wear his favorite long johns to the assembly. She didn’t say anything to Martin at the time, but when her husband, Mitch, came home from work, she told him about Martin’s request.

Mitch cracked up when Anna told him what Martin wanted to wear to the assembly. “I think we should let him,” he said, much to his wife’s horror.

“Are you serious?” Anna said. “There’s no way I’m going to let him wear those long johns outside, much less at a school assembly. And if you don’t back me on this, Mitch, we’re going to wind up having a major flap over it.”

“What is there to argue about, Anna?” Mitch asked. “I mean is there anything that would be more patriotic than the boy wearing his red MAGA long johns while holding up the Stars and Stripes?”

Written for Teresa’s Three Things Challenge where the three things are flap, long johns, and stripes.