Wade Coburn

I write the P&F Blog for Proud & Free.

My grandfather kept a flag in a cedar box in the hall closet and took it out most mornings before the coffee finished. He showed me how to fold it when I was about seven, and he made me do it over when I got it wrong, which was every time for a while. That is the whole origin story. No parade, no ceremony, just a man who thought a flag deserved to be handled properly.

I should be clear about what I am not. I never served. I am not a veteran and I am not going to borrow that language to sound more qualified than I am. I am a guy who has been raising, folding, storing and replacing flags since I was a kid, and who has spent an unreasonable number of hours reading the actual text of the United States Flag Code.

What this blog covers

Etiquette: what to do when a flag touches the ground, how to fly one at half staff, what order flags go in when you fly more than one. The Flag Code itself in plain English, including the parts people quote wrong. Displays for houses, porches, trucks and yards. Hardware, which is the part nobody thinks about until a bracket rusts through in February. And care: washing, drying, storing, and knowing when a flag is finished.

What you will not find here

Politics. This blog is about how to display and care for a flag, not about who you should vote for. If a post ever reads like it is telling you what to think about a candidate or a bill, I wrote it badly and I want to hear about it. The flag belongs to people who disagree with each other, and it holds up fine that way.

How I work

Most of what I write starts as a question somebody actually sent in. When a post touches the Flag Code, I go read the section rather than a summary of it, because the summaries drift. When it touches something we sell, I check the listing before I describe it.

I use AI tools in the process, mostly to organize research notes and tidy up rough drafts. I find them handy and unreliable in about equal measure, so nothing goes out under my name without me reading it line by line first.