The dedication at the base of the flag reads May 20, 1983. Yet so tattered and torn are her stripes that one might think she had been flying since the time of the original Star-Spangled Banner that inspired Francis Scott Key to write our National Anthem.
“Please help us,” Sheila Foote wrote to me. She is a senior resident of the Sunset Gardens Retirement Community on Wren Avenue.
“This is a disgrace,” she added. “The U.S. and State flags that fly in front of our community room are all torn and faded and we residents want them taken down and replaced,” Foote told me when I came to see the flags for myself.
Since a serious stroke in 2001, Foote and her husband have called Sunset Gardens home. An active volunteer, she is always striving to make it a better place, and has served as president of the Residents’ Association in the past.
“The manager before this one told me she had ordered new flags, but they never got here. The new manager said he had ordered flags, and they would be here in two weeks. That was over a month ago. When I asked him again about the flags, he said they will take another month to get here,” the 70-something retiree told me.
“If only they could just be honest with us and not treat us like mushrooms,” Foote said.
“Mushrooms?” I questioned. “What do you mean, mushrooms?”
“You know,” Foote explained, “Keeping us in the dark and feeding us B.S.,” she laughed.
In the past, Sunset Gardens had its own permanent manager who lived on-site, rather than the current arrangement of hiring a manager who splits his time between Morgan Hill properties and Gilroy (4 hours a day at each).
“I have been a lifelong advocate for the underdog,” Foote says, referring to her many years working for Property Management, Inc., an arm of the Santa Clara County Housing Authority. Foote counts Supervisor Don Gage and former Mayor Tom Springer among her friends.
“I saw Tom recently,” she told me. “He came to the rescue when my power scooter got stuck on some uneven pavement and ended up in the mud. I looked around wondering what to do, when I heard Mayor Springer say, ‘I’ll help you out, Sheila.’
“I live in this country and I see the flag everywhere, especially with all our young people fighting in Iraq. I never see it flying ripped, torn, and faded like this one,” Foote said sadly. “I would buy new flags myself if it were allowed. I am speaking up for the other residents. We feel like we are being ignored. This issue is important to them as well, but they are uncomfortable taking a stand about it.”
Foote paused in telling her story, looked down at the ground and then said softly, “You know, my husband served as a Marine for eight years during the Korean War, and my father and my three brothers fought in WWII – and they didn’t all come home. If management can’t afford a new flag, I’d rather have no flag flying at all. It breaks my heart to see our country’s flag looking like a rag.”
