John Perich has always had a soft spot in his heart for Flag Day, particularly at Denver’s Veterans Park, where a pole and its landscaped apron stand as a solitary, colorful jewel on the edge of green space.
“I try to make sure we have a nice flag here,” he said Saturday, understating his role as keeper of the patriotic flame at a landmark he helped build.
On a hot day with just a touch of a breeze to keep the flag rippling against a clear blue sky, about 75 people — many of them Boy Scouts, veterans and their families — celebrated a sometimes-overlooked holiday enacted in 1949.
Afterward, Perich pulled a brief, laminated newspaper article from his wallet that announced the naming of the park in 1990. He’d helped with fundraising and securing a contractor — and the park has remained a special place to him ever since.
“I didn’t intend to get this involved,” he said. “I just thought I’d suggest a name.”
“He was unrelenting,” said Meryl Webster, Perich’s daughter. “That’s why we’re here.”
The 25-minute ceremony at the flagpole, at the intersection of Gaylord Street and Iowa Avenue, had a touch of everything American, from patriotism to ice cream.
A flawless singing of the national anthem and other patriotic favorites, an invocation that remembered the four Boy Scouts killed by an Iowa tornado earlier in the week, the Pledge of Allegiance and a brief history of the flag — all preceded the changing of the colors at a park dedicated to remembering American soldiers.
Perich, a 79-year-old veteran of the Korean conflict, remembers giving leftover construction funds to American Legion Post 1, with the condition that it continue to furnish flags for the site.
He figures it’s probably the only park in Denver that flies the colors 24 hours a day — illuminated at night, according to flag etiquette.
And most years, it features a Flag Day ceremony.
“Some years, we’d get 600 or 700 kids. Day camps would bring them here,” Perich recalls.
But interest had fallen off, especially in recent years, prompting folks like Ron Olson, a past commander of the Legion post, to make an extra effort to reinvigorate the remembrance.
“Last year, maybe three people showed up besides the Legionnaires,” Olson said. “And no kids. That’s what this is all about — the kids.”
In addition to Boy Scout Troop 266, whose members helped crank the new flag to the top of the pole, several smaller kids meandered among the adults and enjoyed refreshments after the ceremony.
Perich enjoys visiting the park every few weeks, sometimes just to reflect.
“In wartime,” he said, “I think even more about the flag. I’m around here so often, the neighbors think I work for the city.”
Perich figures he’s got one thing going for him that will guarantee him a continuing role regarding the colors that fly over the 17-acre park.
“I’m the guy with the crank for the flagpole,” he said.
Kevin Simpson: 303-954-1739 or ksimpson@denverpost.com
