Bob CollinsAround 1955 or so, Warren “Bud” Bushway put up the American flag on a spiffy new pole outside his home in St. Louis Park.
For 59 years, he raised and lowered the flag each day on Cedar Lake Road.
When his wife died in 2007 years after suffering a stoke, he used the time to talk to her.
“Talk to Bev and tell her what I’m planning on doing, if I’ve got anything extra to do,” he told KARE 11’s Jana Shortal in 2014. “Tell her I still love her.”
He died today, Jana reports. It was his 97th birthday.
He dropped out of school after the ninth grade, the Star Tribune’s Gail Rosenblum wrote in a 2014 article. He worked in the San Francisco shipyards until he was drafted into the Army at 22, and sent to the Pacific.
His daughter said every Father’s Day and birthday, his kids knew just what to give him. A new flag.
(h/t: Jana Shortal)
