Couldn’t Have Happened to Two Nicer People

He’s middle-aged, if I had to guess - a paunchy, middle-aged, white guy in jeans, a t-shirt, and the requisite baseball cap, with the only thing really setting him apart from any number of people walking down Union Street in Park Slope being a large American flag on a pole that he carries over one shoulder like a rifle.

A white guy carrying a flag and not being in uniform or marching in a parade of some kind signals “danger” to me, so I judiciously cross to the other side of the street where I can walk in parallel to keep an eye on him. We walk together that way for a while, with him in my peripheral vision, until he passes behind a parked car, where the flag suddenly stops moving.

I pass a little beyond the car and see that he has been stopped by one of the clipboard kids - street solicitors (read: scammers) that hit up pedestrians for money for probably non-existent charities - and, after watching for a moment, I happily continue on my way, a smile on my face and a jaunty spring in my step.