They are everywhere.

At the Flag Memorial, Madisonville City Hall lawn and all around the Monroe County Courthouse, they are as thick as leaves on a tree.

It’s Old Glory. The flag of The United States of America. The banner of the freest, most prosperous nation to ever exist. It’s The Red, White and Blue, and just like the untold numbers of lovers of freedom who have fought under them, those colors don’t run.

Old Glory stands in this season in remembrance of the founding of our Nation, 232 years ago this Friday, on July 4, 1776.

July Fourth is the date our Declaration of Independence was signed. Called the Lee-Adams resolution when first proposed and written mostly by Thomas Jefferson, it was presented to the Congress on June 28. Congress edited it by taking away 480 words in making 86 changes before adopting it and declaring our Independence on July 2, 1776. Two days later, July 4, 1776, they signed it and that’s the day we celebrate.

It was read first in public on July 8, and first printed in a newspaper, the Pennsylvania Evening Post, on July 6, 1776.

Seeing all those flags, and remembering what they stand for reminds me of a recitation by the late Johnny Cash. With some editing for space, here is that poem.

“I walked through a county courthouse square, on a park bench and an old man was sitting there.

I said, “Your courthouse is kinda run down,” he said, “No, it will do for our town.”

I said, “Your flag pole leans a little bit, and that’s a ragged old flag you got hanging on it.”

He said, “Have a seat.” So I sat down and he said, “Is this your first visit to our town?” I said, “I think it is.”

He said, “I don’t like to brag but we’re kinda proud of that ragged old flag. You see, we got a little hole in it when Washington took it across the Delaware.

“It got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it, writing ‘Oh Say Can You See.’

“It got a rip in New Orleans, with Packingham and Jackson tugging at its seams. It almost fell at the Alamo beside the Texas flag, but waved on though.

“It got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville, and again at Shiloh Hill.

“There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg, and the south wind blew hard on that ragged old flag.

“On Flander’s Field in World War I she took a bad hit with a Bertha Gun, she turned blood red in World War II, she hung limp and low before that one was through. Korea, Vietnam, she went where she was sent by Uncle Sam.” Men and women of all colors shed red blood for the Stars and Stripes.

“And here in her own good land, she’s been abused, burned, dishonored, denied and refused, and the government for which she stands has been scandalized throughout the land.

“She’s getting threadbare, and she’s wearing kinda thin, but she’s in pretty good shape, for the shape she’s in. Cause she’s been through the fire before and she can take a whole lot more.

“So we raise her up every morning and we bring her down slow every night, we don’t let her touch the ground, and we fold her up right.

“On second thought I do like to brag, cause I’m mighty proud of that ragged old flag.”