If you plan to let your patriotic colors fly this Memorial Day, do right by Old Glory and display it with dignity — which is to say, not on your stars-and-stripes bikini.

The U.S. Flag Code gives guidelines for properly displaying the American flag. The rules are purely advisory and there’s no enforcement or penalty for violating them, though states can make their own flag laws.

• Whether hanging horizontally or vertically, the union should be uppermost and to the observer’s left (in a window, the observer is the person in the street).

• On Memorial Day, the flag should fly at half-staff until noon and then be hoisted to the peak. (When flying at half-staff, hoist the flag to the peak first before lowering it to half-staff; bring to the peak again before bringing it down for the day.)

• The flag should be displayed outside from sunrise to sunset only, unless it’s properly illuminated at night.

• When displayed with other national flags, all flags should be the same size and fly from separate staffs of the same height.

• When displayed with other state, local or society flags, the U.S. flag should always be at the peak if on the same halyard — the rope that hoists the flag; at the center and highest point if in a cluster of staffs, and hoisted first and lowered last if on adjacent flag poles. No other flag should be above it or to the flag’s own right.

• From crossed staffs, the U.S. flag should be on the observer’s left, with its staff in front.

• When marching, the flag should be carried on the marching right, or, if there’s a line of flags, in front of the center of that line.

• On a car, the flag staff should be fixed to the chassis or clamped to the right fender.

• Wear a flag lapel pin over your heart.

Though the Flag Code does not specify how the flag should be folded, tradition dictates you end up with a triangle with only the blue union showing. For instructions, visit legion.org/flag/folding.