Nearby a foot-high American flag sticks in the ground, beside a white candle on a styrofoam plate, a stone crucifex, and a Barbie doll dressed like an angel.

As the jury's forewoman, a short, middle-aged white woman, read the verdict, ticking off the word "guilty" four times for each one of the victims, Mr. Cherry stood still as a Confederate statue, a tiny American flag stuck in his lapel.

Inside the cones, there was a pot of white chrysanthemums, with three American flags stuck into the soil.

The flag wouldn't stick.

In sight of the coast they left their horses in a thicket and struck out afoot, Virgil carrying his Krag and semaphore flags he'd made tying cloth from worn out clothing to a couple of cane stalks three feet long, the flags rolled together and stuck in his belt.

The tables, arranged on three sides of a hollow square, were bright with candles, cut-glass dishes of candy and slightly tough almonds, figurines of Mickey Mouse, brass Rotary wheels, and small silk American flags stuck in gilded hard-boiled eggs.

I wish we had some flags to stick on top.

Flags the size of football fields rolled out by the National Guard or held aloft by giant cranes; souvenir miniflags gripped in the sticky mitts of 20,000 kids; flags stuck on the cars, stitched to the drivers, sewn on the crews.

The west side of Broad Channel, where Mr. Riepe lives, is filled with tidy homes that have motorboats in the driveways and American flags stuck into the lawns or billowing from the doorways, flags that were there well before Sept. 11 and will probably remain forever after.

In addition to finding her keys and purse, she must also remember to take several old Play-Doh canisters with flags stuck into them from their perch in a closet, and place them at her kitchen threshold.