From: zwicky@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Arnold Zwicky)
Subject: the rainbow flag saga continues
Date: 23 Sep 1995 12:52:54 -0700

you might remember that in june, the 3x5 rainbow flag that
had hung from the tree in front of our columbus house since
1993 was stolen during the night, but was immediately replaced
by a duplicate, and that in august its replacement was stolen 
as well; it, too, was immediately replaced, but by a 4x6
version.

while i was in washington over the weekend, this flag was torn
down.  i re-hung it on monday, but sometime early tuesday morning
it was stolen.  another 4x6 flag went up, lashed *very* sturdily
to the branch.  wednesday evening between 8 and 9 it too was
taken - ripped so fiercely that only the two metal grommets
(still lashed firmly to the branch) remained.

jacques and i had heard a car door slam, but we thought it was
someone visiting one of the neighbors.  as it turns out, the
people in the three houses across the street were not at home,
while the neighbors on either side of us heard the car door
but thought it was someone visiting *us* (plenty of people do).
they were angry and sympathetic and solicitous (one couple said
that their daughter had made a big crayon drawing of the neighborhood,
with our rainbow flag as the central feature), but there wasn't
much they could do.

i have now been on the phone a lot to the columbus police dept.
the people who take reports of crimes (all women, it seems) are
unfailingly nice, but again there's not a lot the police can
do.  when i reported the fourth theft and suggested, as before,
that the flag probably was taken because it was a symbol of gay
pride, the officer said that that was possible, but that someone
else in our neighborhood had had a pittsburgh steelers flag stolen
the same night as our third theft.

we are not easily daunted.  j and i went down the street to the
flag store and got a flagpole and its accompanying hardware.
we intended to mount flag #5 on a second-floor dormer (where
only an agile person with an extension ladder could get at it),
but it turned out to be impossible to get the bracket set firmly
in the siding.  the only place it could be mounted was to the
left of the front door, where it is even more prominent than on
the tree, and a lot easier to get at too.  now we're bringing
it in at night and putting it out in the morning, like a gigantic
multicolored diurnal pet.

slightly feverish mammoth in ohio