15 October—It was almost exactly nine years ago, after a couple of years of controversy and vandalism, that the Litchfield Borough Board of Warden and Burgesses voted unanimously to allow Val and Leslie Caron’s yellow ribbons to decorate five trees on the green. Make that the Green. (We’re supposed to capitalize Black, after all, so why not Green?) The ribbons, which have suffered some hardships and replacement, have represented—make that honored—serving Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, and Coast Guard personnel.

But now, the teapot appears to have come to a tempestuous boil again with half the new borough board—a majority of the burgesses present at the 24 September meeting—ordering the yellow ribbons to be removed from the Green by 2 January 2022. Evidently the three new burgesses who voted consider that there’s no longer a reason for the ribbons to be defiling the Green. The lone vote against the removal order was cast by the only veteran burgess.

Does there have to be a reason acceptable to the burgesses? As I wrote in 2012, when Warden Lee Losee, since wisely retired, hinted that he may have been somewhat influenced by the First Amendment, “some benighted people actually think [it] supersedes the borough’s sanctimonious restrictions on free speech.”

For the record, in defense of the burgesses, there is a new monument on the Green honoring town residents who have served in the military since 1990. But yellow ribbons, besides honoring convicts coming home (from the song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree”) and military personnel, also was the original symbol for AIDS awareness; is the emblem for bladder cancer, endometriosis, microencephaly, and suicide prevention awareness; and was in the title of a 1949 John Wayne western.

And the yellow ribbons clearly constitute a statement that’s protected by the First Amendment. Therefore, if the Litchfield Board of Warden and Burgesses—the local star chamber—doesn’t see the light, the Carons and other ribbonistas should escalate the burgesses’ unconstitutional ukase. The ACLU comes immediately to mind . . .