A hearty cheer to Museum L-A and everyone who planned and participated in the inaugural LADU, a duathlon held in the downtowns of Lewiston and Auburn last Sunday.

The run-bike-run event attracted 135 participants, with 100 volunteers helping on race day. The result was a well-organized and much-appreciated celebration of the Twin Cities’ history and landscape.

Race Director Jennifer Dube-Works called the event an “overwhelming success,” and a true reflection of the museum’s mission to “connect the generations to celebrate who we are as a people, our legacy and our history.”

The day began early, with a kids’ fun run — dubbed the Textile Trot — a little after 7 a.m., with about 25 little ones running the loop at Simard-Payne Park. A number of grandparents watched as the youngsters competed, and it was so much fun that organizers have heard requests to create a “mature audience” division of the Trot.

Talk about connecting generations.

The 19.6-mile race trailed through Lewiston and then Auburn, and included a roster sprinkled with local people, some of who won their divisions and some who had never raced before.

Jacqueline Jancaitis of Lewiston won her division, as did Barbara Fogarty of Auburn. Kate Lewis of Lewiston placed third in hers. Kevin Mitchell of Auburn placed second in his, as did Rich D’Alessandro of Lewiston.

While there were a couple of competitors from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York, the vast majority of the field live and work in the Lewiston-Auburn area and made an effort to support Museum L-A.

Race organizers are still calculating the final fundraising figure, but Dube-Works pledged that 100 percent of all race registrations will fund the museum and its mission, something that couldn’t have happened without tremendous support from sponsors, she said.

The question asked most often since the race ended is whether the museum will hold LADA II.

Dube-Works said the museum’s board of directors hasn’t yet made that decision, but we encourage directors to make this inaugural event an L-A tradition.

Dube-Works said it best: “Not only can you explore your sense of place and your heritage, you can connect the generations. You’re really exploring who you are as a people. We came together for that day,” running, biking and celebrating L-A.

Is it too easy to jeer whoever dumped hundreds of American flags in the trash bin at the Lewiston landfill? Yes. But it’s entirely deserved.

Rick Rodrique of Lewiston discovered the improperly-disposed flags on Wednesday when he was dumping his household garbage. He was instantly angry, and he’s not alone.

The flags — each attached to a wooden stick — appear to be the kind used on lawns, and are believed to have been collected from a cemetery and tossed.

We understand that flags can’t wave in cemeteries year-round because mowing around hundreds, perhaps thousands, of flags is a time-consuming chore. What we don’t understand is how any cemetery, or disposer of any number of flags, would not make the effort to contact a veterans’ organization for help.

There is not a single veterans group in the area that wouldn’t jump to collect and dispose of the flags with the respect every single one is due.

And, to prove that point, Roger Fillion of Lewiston American Legion Post 22 collected the flags from the landfill early Thursday morning and helped arrange a ceremonial burning Friday morning. Cheers to everyone who helped make that happen as we head into the July 4 weekend.

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