Yes, fly the pride flag at City Hall

It's a good time for beauty in the woods and galleries

If you’re trying to make the world a little bit better, put up a rainbow flag or a Black Lives Matter flag or both.

You’ll have to spend $20 or so on a flag and a staff to hold it, if you don’t already have one. But it sends a message.

A few years ago, a couple of young people walked up my driveway in late summer, canvassing for Elise Stefanik. I was out on the lawn.

“Are you planning to vote for Elise Stefanik?” they chirped.

“Do you see that flag?” I said, pointing to the large Black Lives Matter flag next to our front door. “Has she ever said that?”

Their faces fell.

“Get her to say ‘Black lives matter,’ and I’ll think about voting for her,” I said to their backs.

Like many of the best behaviors, like saying “I’m sorry” or “I love you,” putting up a flag of acceptance and support is both simple and difficult. You have to confront the fears and prejudices that make you hesitate and argue yourself out of the urge to play it safe.

But few things feel better than expressing yourself in a positive way. 

That’s why the Glens Falls Common Council should welcome the suggestion from Lower Adirondack Pride that the city fly a pride flag at City Hall during June, which is Pride Month. 

Glens Falls Hospital’s diversity, equity and inclusion committee has led the way by handing out to local businesses posters that announce “All are welcome here” in 15 languages. The posters have proliferated downtown.

The hospital committee was formed in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis and the nationwide protests that resulted. 

Putting up a poster or flying a flag in 2024 is not like marching in Alabama in 1965 or coming out as gay in 1975. It does not risk life and limb or banishment from family and friends and employment.

But breakthroughs in civil rights are built on small gestures inspired by the everyday decency of people choosing to express their best selves.

Horrors like the recent death of a trans teenager in Oklahoma, Dex Benedict, who was ganged up on and beaten in a school bathroom, also begin in small ways, with slights that deny the humanity of our fellow human beings.

Prior to the beating, the Oklahoma schools superintendent, Ryan Walters, released a video, saying that families of trans children are engaged in “an assault on truth.”

“It’s dangerous,” he says. “It puts our girls in jeopardy.”

When a police officer later interviewed Nex and their mother, he discouraged them from filing charges by pointing out that Nex splashed water from her water bottle on the older girls before they knocked her to the floor and beat her into unconsciousness.

“They defended themselves,” he said.

Staying silent assents to the meanness directed at people because of differences that could, instead, be appreciated. Silence allows meanness to flourish into murder.

Putting up a pride flag at City Hall for a month would be something both to shrug and marvel at. Let’s do it as an ordinary act, part of our everyday expression of pleasure at being alive.

Woods

Inspired by Diane Collins’ new book, “Queensbury Trails: Lore, Landscapes & Wildflowers,” Bella, Ringo and I have been exploring trails we’ve never been on before.

Thursday, we parked at the Rush Pond trailhead on West Mountain Road (most easily reached via Northway Exit 20) and walked to Rush Pond and back. It was a crisp day, great for walking, and the trail is wide and smooth, groomed and covered with gravel.

Ringo is ready on Thursday morning to enter the Rush Pond trail system in Queensbury.

Friday, we parked just around the corner on Gurney Lane, walked up past the pool and onto one of the mountain bike trails, which are steep and rough and rocky but well-marked, with trailside maps every quarter-mile or so, showing your location. Friday was an even better day for walking. We went out early, when the air was still cool. By afternoon, the temperature reached 60.

Bella and Ringo head up one of the Gurney Lane mountain bike trails, which can get steep, on a beautiful, crisp morning Friday.

Art

LARAC has two wonderful shows going on now at its two galleries.

Fire Light, at the Lapham Gallery on City Park, features artists Charlene Leary, whose fine woven works incorporate metal, and Margaret Jacobs, a sculptor who transforms heavy steel tools into whimsical organic creations, sprouting leaves and berries.

This is “The Golden Time of Day,” by Charlene Leary, a tapestry that incorporates copper.

These steel pieces from Margaret Jacobs are called “Old Growth, Companion Pieces: Blueberry”

Here and There, at the Mountain Gallery on Bay Street, across from the park, features an assortment of works from 10 artists, from Gary Larsen’s beautifully composed and processed photographs, some of which appear to be pastel paintings, to Ronn Mattia’s dramatic, sharp-edged steel and glass sculptures.

Fire Light runs through April 3 in Lapham Gallery, which is open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day except Sunday and until 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Here & There is the final show in the Mountain Gallery space on Bay Street, so a closing reception will be held, starting at 5 p.m. Friday, March 29. Mountain Gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Admission is free at both galleries.

Diane Swanson, an artist who also works at LARAC, stands in Mountain Gallery on Bay Street on Thursday, talking about the current show, Here & There.