Looking back in order to look ahead
Scene Through the Lens with photographer Tom Gralish.
I was standing next to a big sign before the start of an event this week. It had a photo of the host and the large words “America 250.” More than one person arriving wondered out loud, “Why the 250?” Or, “Isn’t that passed?”
They weren’t asking me. I was just there, inside looking out the front door, waiting for re-enactor Chris Lewis to step into a favorable position so I could make the photo above.
The registration table was farther inside, so nobody was there to say something like, “Just because July 4 is behind us doesn’t meant we can’t continue the celebration of what was accomplished in 1776. Or we could think about what we want the next 250 years to look like.”
That’s what Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton and three other historic statehouse speakers from Delaware, Illinois, and New York did, reflecting on America’s history while looking ahead.
I did my own share of looking both back and forward while covering another anniversary this week. Those of us old enough to remember knew even on that day that nothing about our future would never be the same again.
After 9/11 the flag became a symbol of shared feelings, giving people a way to express emotions that words could not.
Sports reporter Matt Breen — a Northeast Philly native and Temple grad — writes the kind of stories I like to read, full of history and nostalgia, trivia, and tidbits. And plenty of “Only in Philadelphia” characters. Like Flag Man.
I photographed Jim Minacci twenty-five years ago when the Phillies were back at Veterans Stadium after the season was paused following 9/11.
He and his son walked around all the concourses carrying a large American flag — trailed like the Piped Piper by a line of kids. They did it at every home game for the rest of that season as he became a symbol of patriotism.
Minacci still attends Phillies games and he still has the flag (but it’s too big to be allowed into Citizens Bank Park).
Breen wrote about him and I made the photos at Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) Episcopal Church, where he and his wife Paula still live and work as sextons.
Surprisingly, while there have been stories about the Minaccis — and the dozens of music events they host all yearlong to raise money for the historic church — it looks like Matt is the first one to write about Flag Man since 2001.
Looking ahead, it would be great if Americans could reclaim that feeling today, reclaim the sense of community that emerged from the tragedy (without something else terrible having to happen).
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
» SEE MORE: Archived columns and Twenty years of a photo column.
