Happy Flag Day, Everybody !!!

[Robin Hickman]

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HAPPY FLAG DAY, Everybody !!!

I hope you're all celebrating in "Grand Old Flag" style !!!


As chairman of the Springfield Jaycees' "Flags For Patriotism" program, I made sure that we got the "posting" portion of our Flag Day "Flags Posting" taken care of EARLY. We still have the "striking" of the Flags (98 of them!) to take care of, starting in about an hour and a half or so( approximately 6:00 to 6:30 PM).

Here are a few personal pictures from earlier today :


FlagDay-DawnsEarlyLight-CarFULL(2009-06-14).JPG
FlagDay-DawnsEarlyLight-CarFULL(2009-06-14).JPG


FlagDay-DawnsEarlyLight-GarageEMPTY(2009-06-14).JPG
FlagDay-DawnsEarlyLight-GarageEMPTY(2009-06-14).JPG


FlagDay-HeavensToBETSY(2009-06-14).JPG
FlagDay-HeavensToBETSY(2009-06-14).JPG


FlagDay-ROBIN-AfterShortNAP(2009-06-14).JPG
FlagDay-AfterShortNAP(2009-06-14).JPG


I'm going to grab a quick bite to eat, double-check my paperwork, and take a few Ibuprofens. Then, it going to be time to start "striking ALL those flags scattered ALL around Springfield, Oregon !!!

CARPE DIEM !!!


HAPPY FLAG DAY, Everybody !!!


Patriotically, Yours,


Robin "Keep 'Em Flying!" Hickman
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[mattsaccount]

Heh, I didn't even realize it was Flag Day until about 10 minutes ago when I read an article about Microsoft's new search engine bing.com and discovered their home page was decorated for the occasion. Happy Flag Day

[Peter Ansoff]

The flag-day edition of the "Flashbacks" comic strip was called "Run It Up the Flagpole" and had a nice explanation of the term "Vexillology." There were also several good articles in the national press about various aspects of the American flag. The one in the Washington Post dealt with recent research on the "John Shaw flag" which flew over the statehouse in Annapolis when the Continental Congress met there.

NAVA member Dick Libby presented a paper on the John Shaw flag at last year's meeting in Austin. It will be published in "Raven," probably next year.

Peter Ansoff

[Robin Hickman]

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FLAG DAY : It Was TheBEST Of Times, It Was The WORST Of Times !!!



The BEST Of Times.....


Posting ALL 98 flags the morning of Flag Day went SO smoothly and quickly! I was able to post each of the four routes at a pace that was better than a "Flag-A-Minute", which is IDEAL (and VERY FAST) !!!


Even BETTER, is that I was able to do the SAME THING with the entire posting of ALL 98 Flags (ALL four Routes) in only 97 minutes!



The WORST Of Times.....

At the start of "striking" (picking up) the Flags, I had picked up 10 Flags (out of 98) and two Big blocks (out of 14) when my car DIED in the middle of the Gateway Arco's Beltline Driveway!

MY CAR DIED !!!
MyCarDIED.JPG


With a little help, I was able to push my car back onto their lot and out of the way. After trying to re-start the car 4-5 times, I called my wife, Marina, and asked her to help out. She said yes, and about a half an hour later she was THERE!

MARINA TO THE RESCUE !!!
MarinaToTheRescue.JPG


Unfortunately, by the time we got RE-Started, it was already 7:30 PM, and Sunset was only about 90 minutes away, with full darkness about 30 minutes after that!


Marina drove while I picked up the Flags. She was unfamiliar with the routes and where to drive the car for each of the Flag pick-ups, so it went a little slower than "normal".

Striking The Flag (and picking up the 60 Lb. Block) At Powell Insurance :

StrikingTheFlagAtPowellInsurance.JPG


Another thing that slowed us down was ME! Or more precisely, not always communicating effectively. After over 150 Flags Postings over the past 20 years I really KNOW where to go. I don't need to "consciously" tell myself where to go next, how to get there, and where to stop the car when we DO get "there"! BUT..... when there is somebody else driving the car, I am TOTALLY out of practice being able to effectively communicate WHERE we needed to go what needed to be done next.

OUCH !!!

The biggest "problem" might have been the fact that my wife's little Ford Focus is unable to carry ALL of the Flags at once, so there would have to be TWO trips made, PLUS the time it took to go all the way home to off-load the first bunch and then drive all the way back out to pick up the rest of them!


Anyway, it got dark pretty darn quick. In fact it was dark by the time we got the first load of Flags back to the house to off-load them. Off-loading took a little more time than I'd hoped. But, hey! Whattaya gonna do?

End Of The 1st Run (74 Flags & 8 Big Blocks) & It's DARK !!!
EndOf1stRun-CarFull-ItsDARK.JPG


We went back out to finish picking up the last route; East Springfield & Thurston. FINALLY got the very LAST FLAG picked up at 11:30 PM, some two hours after it got dark.

It was a VERY L-O-N-G day! Got back home and off-loaded the Flags and was ALL done by two minutes after 12:00 Midnight, Monday, June 15th, 2009 !!!


WHEW !!!


It Was The BEST Of Times, It Was The WORST Of Times..... AND It Took A LOT Of TIME : From Before 4:00 AM To After 12:00 Midnight !!!


Robin

PS. I'll "POP" in a couple of more pics in the next post !!!

[Robin Hickman]

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Four More Photos (WORST Of Times !)


FinalFlag-ThurstonKeyBank.JPG :
FinalFlag-ThurstonKeyBank.JPG


LastFlag-2330Hours.JPG :
LastFlag-2330Hours.JPG


BackHomeAgain.JPG :
BackHomeAgain.JPG


ALLDONE-0002Hours-June15th.JPG :
ALLDONE-0002Hours-June15th.JPG



Anyway, That's MY Story And I'm Stickin' To It !!!



Robin
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[american_flag_uk]

wow.. this is really cool stuff Robin!

i celebrated flag day also over here in the UK.

I already had 4 large US flags, bunting, a flag in a triangular case (see avatar) and flags on string hung round the room as they always are, so I added 3 extra big flags, making this room have even more patriotic stuff.
I then dressed up as Uncle Sam, and I made a playlist of music for flag day and played it whilst broadcasting on my webcam and mic, and telling people that came to watch my show all about the US flag and my collection.

I was not able to fly the flag this year though- I had intended to, but it was raining!

Are those all YOUR flags in that garage??

I like your hat and shirt they are cool

[Robin Hickman]

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Hi, American_Flag_UK !


I knew that you had a LOT of American Flags (I don't remember HOW many...) from reading some of your posts. You also included a Pic in one of them where you had your ENTIRE collection of Flags displayed in your room. You were dressed in some red, white, and blue clothing and you hid yourself in plain sight! Perfectly Patriotic Camouflage !!!

I did NOT know that you do "patriotic" webcasts! Of course, I was either out of the house and too busy to watch the webcast on FLAG Day, or I was taking a NAP! Sorry I missed it!

Sorry you were unable to fly any of your Flags outdoors this year. At least you had more than a few un-furled indoors, right?

No, those are NOT all my flags in the garage! It's kind of a long story...

A little bit of the story is told in this thread :

http://www.usa-flag-site.org/forum/robin-hickman-2nd-chance-make-1st-5291.html

In my house and garage I have, by my guess, approximately 500 American Flags. Almost all of which are 3'x5'. Between 1/2 and 2/3 (approximately) of the Flags, belong to the Springfield Jaycees (Junior Chamber of Commerce), and the rest are mine. Why do I have a bunch of Flags that belong to the Jaycees? NOT because I'm a "Flag Collector", because I am NOT a "Flag Collector"!

If you look on my Profile page, in the "Bio" section it says : "Chairman of the Springfield (Oregon) Jaycees' "Flags For Patriotism Program" ("Flags Program")."

What IS the "Flags For Patriotism" program (AKA: "Flags Program") ???

Our Flags Program is a holiday Flag flying service. Meaning that we supply the 3'x5' American Flag mounted on an eight foot pole and a Flag-holder, and on each of the eight selected "Flag Holidays", we post a Flag in front of each participating business in Springfield, Oregon. We provide everything and we do ALL the work, and our customers look VERY patriotic on those days we have a Flag posted out front! Currently we have 98 businesses signed up.

We post the Flags at least eight times a year (contractually), and we usually do one or more "special" postings (no extra charge) just as a little something "extra" and in keeping with the program's primary purpose :

"The Primary Purpose of the Springfield Jaycees' "Flags for Patriotism" program is to foster and promote the "Spirit of Patriotism" in our community while acting as an annual, year-round, fund-raising activity for our Chapter."

First and foremost, the MOST important thing is to "foster & promote the spirit of patriotism". THAT is done by posting the Flags. The "fund-raising" part just kind of follows along after...

We have over 130 Flags-on-poles, and approximately 150 un-mounted Flags, plus another 20-25 or so ready for retirement. Actually, almost ALL of the mounted Flags (on poles) are between 12-15 years old and, in my opinion, need to be retired. Retiring them is the hardest part! (We've been through SO MUCH together!)

Anyway, all those Flags have to be "stored" somewhere in between Flags Postings. I'm the Flags Program Chairman, so guess WHO gets to store ALL the Flags?

There's more to it than all that. Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be) my AOL is getting ready to "CRASH", so I'm going to have to finish this up at some other time.

I'm glad you like the T-Shirt. So do I. It even has its own little story!

Anyway, AOL is starting to get REALLY persnickety, so I'm goin to "sign off" now !

Buh-Bye !

Robin "But Wait! There's MORE!" Hickman
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[coasterville]

Fascinating article, thanks for posting. I never gave much thought into what goes into those "flag day" displays. I know several neighborhoods around me do them, and I agree they do give a delightful patriotic feel to a comminity.

I saw one display coming down the day after Memorial day this year by one community, it involved a city work crew driving a truck with one guy standing in the bad of the truck removing the flags as they drove slowly from one streetpost to the next and another guy in the bed of the truck carefully stacking them up.