KEN LAYNE REFLECTS:

The flags went up, of course, but it was especially pleasant to see the flags go up in my immigrant-heavy neighborhood of Armenians, Filipinos, Central Americans, Middle Easterners and Russians. I had never thought much about displaying a flag, and after the terrorist attacks I was much more worried about my beat-up old revolver and its 15-year-old ammunition. But I recall driving through the neighborhood a few days later and seeing all those flags sprouting from car windows and front lawns and apartment balconies. There was a grim-faced middle-aged black guy getting out of a mechanic’s pickup down the block, and as I drove slowly up the street I saw his American flag on the ladder rack, and he looked at me and waved and gave a little nod and it would’ve been laughable in a John Cougar Mellencamp video from the 1980s. But I just started weeping like a jackass. . . .

I learned more than a few things, especially about this country I call home. Like spending a year abroad in some hellhole little nation, Sept. 11 made all the American stuff I take for granted seem shiny and new. (If you’ve lived abroad, you know what it’s like to come home and see how goddamned great this nation can be.)

Why isn’t Ken Layne writing for the New York Times, instead of, well, pretty much all the people who actually are writing for the New York Times? Yeah, I know.