Lunch Hour

  American History Museum again today.  I'm feeling a little slow after an awesome day at the beach (in Delaware!) with the Hill clan, Mistie, and Zach.  Work just doesn't measure up to building sandcastles and riding waves.  Anyway, the museum was cool.  Checked out the Star-Spangled Banner.  Those of you who visited the museum before 1999 remember the banner hanging gloriously three stories tall in the museum's central hall.  It's been replaced by the Pentagon Flag, which reminds people as they approach it why they must do so through a long, uncomfortable security line.  Stoopid govermint.  The Star-Spangled Banner, which flew over Ft. McHenry during the War of 1812, has been moved to a safer place where it won't die as quickly.  It can still be viewed, and the exhibit around it shows some of the techniques that have been used to maintain it.  In a neighboring exhibit, as part of the museum's frothy tribute to the Greatest Generation hang a few famous World War II flags, including one hand-sewn from Nazi scrap cloth by an American soldier whose division was leading the charge across Germany in 1945.