The students from Eaton Elementary School sent him thank-you notes for coming to their school to teach them about the American flag.

"I've never gotten [a thank-you] like this before; it was really overwhelming," he says.

There were 20 letters--some with outlines of flags drawn on the outside of their notes, some with stars and stripes--and a few others signed collectively by third-grade classes.

Feineman has been Cupertino Union School District's flag guy for 15 years.

As a member of Cupertino Host Lions Club, he goes to the district's elementary schools each year around Presidents Day, armed with a 6-inch-by-9-inch flag on a stick for each student and the story of Old Glory. This year he gave out 420 flags.

Experience has taught him to give the flags to teachers to pass out at the end of his talk; otherwise the sticks turn into swords, bats or poking tools during his visit.

He says giving a flag talk on Flag Day would be logical, but that is June 14, and school is not in session then, so the next practical choice was Presidents Day.

The 82-year-old San Jose resident is the son of a career Navy man. He is a military veteran himself and served as a combat engineer in World War II. He's been surrounded by patriotism and the flag his entire life.

Both of his parents are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

This year, for the first time in his flag-talking experience, Feineman took the 3-foot-by-5-foot flag that draped his father's coffin to show students.

Zipped in a plastic bag, the flag was folded in the traditional triangular shape. It hadn't been unfolded since his father's funeral. But the only sign of aging was its darkened color.

There was no particular reason for this inaugural showing, Feineman says; he just happened to come across it. But he says showing the flag to the students was emotional and left him choked up.

Feineman is full of flag-related information. For instance, he says flags from other countries such as Mexico and Spain once flew over parts of the United States Delaware, once a Swedish colony, flew the Swedish flag.

Feineman's talk to the students is about 25 minutes.

"That's about all [the students] can take before they start squirming," he says.

As he shows them a flag, he tells them how it came to look the way it does. There could be any number of stars on the flag, but there are 50, he tells the students. He explains the 50 stars represent the 50 states in the union, and he tells them about the last two states to be added, Alaska and Hawaii. He explains how the flag came to have 13 stripes--the seven red and six white stripes symbolize the original 13 colonies that became the United States. He also explains the colors--red stands for courage, white for liberty and blue for loyalty.

He asks them questions to get them to think about such related things as the Pledge of Allegiance--what it is and why we say it.

Then he randomly selects six children to stand along what would be the edges of a 30-foot wide by 42-foot long flag, the actual size of the flag that was called the Star-Spangled Banner, which once flew over Fort McHenry and now is on display at the Smithsonian. According to the notes Feineman received, the activity left an impression on several Eaton students.

Cupertino Host Lions Club gives away 50,000 flags each year and sells three times that to fellow clubs across the country. Feineman joined the club in 1983 when he retired from an engineering job at GTE. He and his wife Betty, 80, who frequently joins him for the flag talks, have been married for 58 years.

When he first joined the club, he would go to the federal courthouse to pass out flags to new citizens, but as time passed, the number of new citizens grew too large, and the cost of handing out that many flags grew too great.

Feineman also used to give out flags at polling stations--to children who he says, "brought their parents to vote."

"They always knew just what to do with them," he says waving a small flag.

El Camino Hospital