When the stranger came to her door in Bethel Park with 20 small American flags in his hand, Shirley Ubinger cried. But we have to go back a dozen years for you to know why.

Back then, her husband, John Ubinger, was given dozens of flags by a friend who worked at a cemetery in Rochester. These were flags that had flown beside veterans' graves on thigh-level stakes, placed reverently on Memorial Day by fellow veterans and Boy Scouts.

Ordinarily, when such flags are retired, they are respectfully burned, but Ubinger thought them a little young for retirement. On each national holiday through the 1990s, he'd fly them on his street, Kirk Avenue in Carrick.

"It's a nice neighborhood," said Ubinger, who served in the Air Force during the Korean War. "But it's full of kids and mischief and that sort of thing."

Yet everyone respected the flags. They'd remain where they were, staked in the ground along the sidewalk, dozens of them for every national holiday.

Having raised and waved goodbye to eight children in their Carrick home, the grandparents, weary of climbing steps, decided the three-story home no longer made sense for them. So the Ubingers moved to a one-story home on Broughton Road four years ago and brought their flag tradition with them.

On Independence Day, John Ubinger staked them on both sides of his driveway and along the road in front of both their home and that of their neighbors, the Polumbias. By now, that task has become second nature. He has even fashioned a tool from metal pipes -- "my hole poker-inner" -- to get 80 flags flying in a hurry.

About 6:30 a.m. Monday, when he went out to get his Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he found all but one of his flags gone.

"Those flags were important to me," Ubinger said. "They didn't just come from a department store. They were genuine veterans' flags."

"It took a lot of nerve," neighbor Daria Polumbia said. "I was kind of disgusted. Kids steal a lot of things, but flags?"

"WHAT KIND OF AMERICAN?" asked the sign Ubinger posted that morning on Broughton Road, "WOULD STEAL OUR FLAGS?"

That afternoon, when the Ubingers were enjoying their backyard pool with family and friends, a thirtysomething woman walked into their back yard. She said her name was Monica and she passed their home often on visits to her great aunt, and wanted them to know how much she appreciated the flags. She handed Shirley Ubinger two that she happened to have in the car, and left.

The next morning, a fortysomething man came to the door. He said he was a veteran, as was his wife, and he wanted to give the Ubingers a small flag for each year they'd served. He handed Shirley Ubinger one set of 12 and one set of eight, wrapped in gum bands. Then, like the Lone Ranger, he left before she could get his name, but not before she hugged him and cried.

That's the way it is with our flag. We need no constitutional amendment to protect it. We, the people, choose to honor it. That choice defines us as a free people. Anytime a flag is dishonored, dozens more rise in its place.

Nobody told Ubinger to make this a tradition -- though he thanks his parents for having the foresight to make his birthday June 14, Flag Day. Nobody told Monica or the anonymous veteran to bear gifts to The Flagman of Broughton Avenue. And when the Bethel Park police solve this petty theft, it will be because somebody hears a thief bragging. That somebody will be properly appalled. Then an open court can decide how the thieves must make it up to The Flagman.

Meantime, Ubinger will raise a large flag every morning and take it down every evening.

I expect, on the next national holiday, more flags will be flying on Broughton Avenue than ever before.

First Published: July 8, 2004, 4:00 a.m.