The Message In The Flag

      It was a beautiful fall day in the neighborhood q few days ago when I went out for my daily morning walk, and so I couldn't resist snapping some pictures along the way.

     There's one lovely, bucolic street about a mile away from where I live that's part of my usual walking route.    

       On this street there's a house in front of which flies the American flag. I don't know who lives in the house with this flag, but I always felt that they must be of the conservative persuasion. I felt this in spite of the fact that around where I live the  flag is flown by a good number of folks of varying political views.​

       In fact, we fly the American flag on our house,

...along with several other flags.

     (I've heard my  house referred to around the 'hood as "the house with the flags").
       But, in spite of the fact that in our locality flag-flying is a more or less bipartisan activity, I'd taken a notion that the flyer of this particular flag likely leaned to the right politicly because...well...it was a big flag. A big flag on a long pole attached to the mailbox post by the curb, and it faced inwards towards the sidewalk and fluttered so close to the sidewalk that it was in the direct line of vision and almost in the path of the passers-by. 
​      And then attached to the mailbox post beneath the flag was a spotlight positioned so that when lit it would shine on the flag, which indicated that this flag flew 24/7, proper respect for the flag requiring that it be taken in at sunset unless  illuminated at night like so:

...as this flag obviously would be at night.
         Such was my rationale for assuming what I assumed about the political bent of the flag's owner.
​      On the day that I was walking and snapping my pictures, I reached the spot where, as usual, I discerned from a distance the big sidewalk flag.     

         But as I approached the flag I noticed this time something unusual: it was being flown upside down.   

       Now, historically, flying the American flag upside down dates back to at least the 1700's, when a ship flying a flag upside down was a signal of extreme distress, an urgent call for immediate help because the ship is sinking.

       In modern times an upside down American flag has been flown as a declaration of the belief that it is our country that is in dire sinking straits, as it was used during the Vietnam War protests in the 1960's,

...and, most recently, by supporters of Donald Trump who carried upside down flags to protest his criminal felony conviction last summer.

       And now here in my neighborhood in front of a residence whose occupants I had taken to be staunch flag-flying conservatives - aka Donald Trump supporters  - was this prodigious flag being flown upside down. But why, pray, days after Trump's decisive election to the Presidency of the United States, would a flag-flying Trump supporter be signaling their distress for the state of our nation?
        Perhaps the real message in that upside down flag was that someone like myself needs to examine some of her preconceived notions.