In a previous life - that is, before I joined the fast-paced, high-paying world of librarianship - I worked for a United States Senator in Washington, D.C. No, I was not one of the "important" staffers, those who help to write legislation, attend hearings, or advise the member. I was one of the other people - you know, the ones who did everything else so that the rest of it looked glamorous. It was certainly one of the most interesting jobs I ever had, and I'm glad I had the experience.

One of my responsibilities was Flag Duty. Really. Do any of you have a flag that was flown over the U.S. Capitol building? Did you know it's pretty easy to obtain one? Well, it is. But before you start calling your senators and congressmen, let me just tell you what it means to own a flag that was "flown over the Capitol." WARNING: For those of you who hate to have your illusions shattered, I would suggest that you stop reading now, and turn to something gentler. Anyone who keeps reading, well, don't blame me if you are disappointed...

Flag Duty involved receiving requests by phone or mail (and probably now, via e-mail) from constituents or other citizens for a flag for themselves or someone else, flown over the Capitol on a specific date, and/or in honor of an event. The first step was to contact the requestor and see what kind of flag they wanted. The choices were cotton or polyester. Cotton was a little bit nicer, but wouldn't last as long, and at the time at least, it was $2.00 more ($16.00). Polyester, though not as aesthetically pleasing, would last forever, and was the less expensive of the choices. Once the requestor had made that choice, the other information would be verified. A form would be completed (remember, we are talking about the federal government here), and then the box containing the flag and the completed form would be dropped off at the Flag Office in either the Senate or House side of Congress. Once the flag had been flown, it would be returned to the member's office, to be mailed to the requestor. It is most likely one of the most straightforward procedures that takes place in our government, and each Congressional office receives hundreds of requests each year. That's a lot of flags!

Each flag that has been flown over the Capitol has a certificate, stating that it was "flown over the United States Capitol, in Washington, D.C., at the request of Senator/Congressman I.M. Important" (I'm of course paraphrasing here), on the date of __________, in honor of ___________ (if that is stated on the request form). This certificate is in some ways, just as important as the flag itself.

Well, you may be saying to yourselves, that's no big deal, it's a nice story, maybe some day I'll get one. But my favorite part of the story is exactly what "flown over the Capitol" means to some people as opposed to what actually happens to the flag.

There are numerous flagpoles on the roof of the Capitol building, which contains both House and Senate offices (along with other buildings nearby that also contain offices - there are a lot more Congressmen and Senators now than there were when the Capitol was built). Every day, young people who are working as pages take the flags and run them up the flagpole, where they stay for approximately 30 seconds to a minute, depending on how many must be done that day. Believe it or not, there are enough requests for flags that flying them does require a small army of people who spend their time doing nothing but that on any given day.

But most people have no idea that the whole event is so brief and unglamorous. Because the certificate that accompanies the flag states that it was flown over the Capitol on such-and-such a date, most people assume that their flag flew over the Capitol for that entire day. If it's in honor of someone or something, that makes it all the more meaningful for them. If it just happens to be flown over the Capitol on a day when some historic event occurs, even better! Other people are slightly more cynical and have the idea that there are probably too many requests to have only one flag flying over the Capitol on one day, so they assume that the flags in question flew over the congressional offices on Capitol Hill collectively. Though the concept of "one flag, one day" still holds for them. We had an intern in our office (this was long before interns became infamous, though I must say this one was long on looks and short on brains) who during the first week had to have the Capitol building pointed out to her (!), since "all of the buildings are white marble" (fortunately for her, all of the buildings had signs as well). Anyway, she had the perfect explanation for how so many flags were flown over the Capitol each day. Her theory was that every morning, they loaded them onto a military jet, and then that jet flew over the Capitol! She understood the phrase "flown over the Capitol" just a little bit differently than the rest of us...

This is not to say that having one of these flags is ridiculous. It isn't, because the important thing is what the whole thing means to the recipient, not the technicalities of how it ended up over the Capitol in the first place. One year for his birthday in August, we bought one of these flags for my father-in-law, who had been a Navy bomber pilot in World War II. We asked that it be flown on Father's Day. We sent it to him along with the certificate, and it was probably one of the best gifts we ever gave to him. As a matter of fact, my husband's siblings all told him that they were "really sick of Dad telling them about that d**n flag." He would tell anyone and everyone about the flag hanging off the front porch, and how it had been "flown over the Capitol" on Father's Day. Yep, he got a lot of mileage out of that, it was definitely a conversation starter. It made both of us happy that it meant so much to him, and that he treated it with such care.