Now I feel more like I live in middle America, especially after watching Cookie and his little Cub Scout buddies do the flag-raising ceremony at school this morning.

Not exactly a Mount Suribachi moment, but not everything can be a Ken Burns documentary.

The head of the school's grounds crew came out to show them the right way to handle the flag. He got it hooked on, then ran it smartly up the flagpole. Some remembered to do the Cub Scout salute; of those, some even did it with the right hand.

Hey, they're learning!

Gonna be a hot one at Berea-Rose today -- should get close to 90 degrees, not unwelcome given the cool spell we had late this summer. But I should try to water the grass -- it finally came back nice and lush after those big rains, but now with warm dry days it might revert to the brown crunchiness we had for most of July.