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Portland Association Publication 1

Portland Flag Association “Free, and Worth Every Penny!” Issue 17 April 2008

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: GOOGLE-MANIA: Following the Yellow Brick Road

GOOGLE-MANIA 1 from Pulaski and Plagues to Hillary and NAFTA Flag Related Websites 2 By Marshall Goldberg Publications—Current Titles— 4 April 2008 Flutterings revealed a Civil War journal of a 5 The Seasons Maryland pharmacist turned ship’s The Flag Quiz 6 surgeon, YELLOW FLAG, by Stew- Next Meeting Announcement 7 ard C. Marion. The yellow was So Long, Harry 7 a quarantine flag flown from ships (and at times from port entries) in- Following the April PFA meeting, I pursued my interest in Count Pu- dicating the presence of yellow laski’s Revolutionary War , fever. devised to represent his independ- ent cavalry legion. Googling the Maryland Historical Society— repository of the original banner Lima signal flag Quebec signal flag made by the Moravian women of Editor’s note: Currently the Lima flag is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania—led to a used within the harbor to indicate quaran- discursive ride through history, tine and the Quebec flag is used to request , politics and botany. pratique (license proving good health).

This jack also figures in an 1872 detective novel, THE YELLOW FLAG, by Edmund Hudson Yates and a 1939 movie, YELLOW JACK, directed by Georg B. Seitz. In fact, yellow fever was also known as “yellow jack” because of the warn- ing flag. Historical reference per- sists in the yellow jack flag of a If the flag needs protection at football team—Team Yellow all, it needs it from members Count Pulaski’s Banner Fever, a coed flag football league of Congress who value the symbol more than the free- Reviewing the Historical Society (Continued on page 2) doms that the flag represents. If you wish to compliment the editor, to contribute in the future, contact John Hood at —Rep. Jerrold Nadler, 2005 503-238-7666 or [email protected]. If you wish to complain, call your mother. 2 Portland Flag Association Publication Google-Mania a big yellow flag of caution Flutterings (against) NAFTA” (NYT (Continued from page 1) 4/1/08), according to her own (Continued from page 4) statement. However, she was of Arlington, Virginia. known to have held numerous Scott was once more out of the meetings in 1993 in support of but he did submit some NAFTA. he has been doodling with; see his article on page 8. In conclusion, beware of blind trust in search engines for rele- Marshall will be spending more of vancy and good sense in pursuit his time in Los Altos, CA with his of vexillological knowledge. Fol- daughter so he brought a small Los lowing the yellow brick road— Altos flag, but we didn’t get a pic- ture of it. Next time I’ll have my camera ready!

Team Yellow Fever John had no new flags, but he did provide an update from the various Other digressions via search en- publications he receives. eFlags, the gines will lead the unwary to the virtual flag magazine from the Flag “Yellow Flag Iris” (a flower), the Institute is a new approach to get- ”Yellow Flag (Bus) ” in Bang- ting the word out. And leave it to a kok, , and the three yellow librarian to create An American flag warning signals used by NAS- whether to Oz Abecedary of Flags as Kevin Harring- CAR. ton did in his latest Flagcan.

Michael Orelove was in Alaska but he did send in a packet of goods. Caution Debris Restart He maintains 20 year time capsules on Road Race and this year opened 1988. The 1988 calendar he forwarded, coinci- Returning to healthcare, “Yellow dentally, had the flags, flowers and Flag” is defined in the journal, DY- of . He also sent NAMIC CHIROPRACTIC (11/30/02 or through Sophia, Bulgaria colored paper so we could design a -Vol. 20, Issue 25), as “Risk factors flag for the PFA—maybe next associated with chronic pain or dis- will not necessarily yield enlight- time. ability.” Included is a yellow flag enment. scoring questionnaire. Some Flag Related Websites Darwin, Northern Territory () http:// Yellow flags of political correctness NAVA http://www.nava.org www.nationalflags.com.au occur across the political spectrum. Bruno V. Manno waves a flag of () Flag Society of Australia http:// caution in his article, YELLOW http://www.flaginstitute.org www.flagsaustralia.com.au FLAG—A FORUM ON CHARTER Flags of the World http:// Flag Research Center (Massachusetts) SCHOOLS (EDUCATION NEXT, www.fotw.net http://www.flagresearchcenter.com Winter 2003, Vol. 3, Number 1). Hillary Clinton (not to be left be- Elmer’s Flag & Banner http:// Southern African Vexillological hind her spouse’s efforts) “...raised www.elmersflag.com Assoc. http://www.sa-va.org.za

Portland Flag Association Publication 3 World Flag Update message of peace and unity could best schools. The Franciscan - not have come to a better place. tessori Earth School at 14750 SE By John Carroll Clinton St. is led by Mother Fran- The World Flag is on the move! After unveiling The World Flag, cine and the Franciscan Sisters of The flag flies at schools, places of students learned about the history The Eucharist. At this school the worship, from businesses and from of the U.S. Flag, identified flags of kids have a 5x8 foot flag raised people’s homes throughout the the world, and named the seven from their flag pole each day to re- world. Here is a short list of some continents. mind them that we all share this of the places The World Flag has amazing planet together, and each of the 300 students have been given recently been flying in the last few a flashcard by The world Flag Pro- months: Australia, , Ne- ject used to learn about the coun- pal, , Argentina, Canada, Nor- tries, places and people of the way, Costa Rica, Israel, , world. The kids go one step further Italy, England, Nova Scotia and and learn about geography, the en- throughout the . Here vironment and relationships that are a couple of stories about The The students created their own the are dealing with. World Flag being used in the U.S. countries, and designed flags to As The World Flags message of World Flag Ambassador Sarah represent their imaginary lands. "Teaching Unity-Sharing Diver- Griggs gave as a gift The World The World Flag Project culmi- sity" spans the Globe, more peo- Flag to Ms. Taylor's first grade nated in students describing the ple begin to understand the posi- classroom at Scott Montgomery national language, food, animal, tive impact The World Flag is Elementary school in Washington, and geography of their country. having on individuals and com- D.C. Ms. Taylor is an educator in They even created a national munities. Teach for America. dance, which they demonstrated to the rest of the class. For further information and up- dates, go to: http:// The World Flag is also part of daily www.theworldflag.org life by one of Portland, Oregon's

Over the last year, Scott Mont- gomery Elementary has experi- enced external gang activity on and around the school property, includ- ing graffiti on school buildings, drug dealing, as well as the stashing of firearms on the grounds. While the school has taken measures to ensure the safety of students, these children still face many challenges outside the protection of the school's walls. The World Flag's 4 Portland Flag Association Publication April 2008 Flutterings You Need to Know John Carroll told us of the progress At the last meeting, Ted had won- Ted, via NAVA, received a letter of The World Flag (see his article dered what the U.S. Flag would and pictures of a flag purporting to on page 3. He said that the colors look like with the stars replaced be from the German battleship for the flag have not been satisfac- by the state flags, since most are “Bismarck” that was sunk in 1941. tory and that they are trying to re- white seals on blue backgrounds. The person wanted to know what solve the problem. The editor cobbled together a few to do with it, perhaps sell it at auc- arrangements and here is the one tion. Ted had discussions with sev- It was good to see Ken Dale who that showed this phenomenon the eral experts within NAVA and the has been marked absent recently. best: conclusion was that this is not as A friend of his, who was unable to come, provided him with a “Flag of Honor” for “show and tell.” It is a standard U.S. Flag, but with the names of each victim of the 9/11 tragedy printed on the stripes. A rather powerful statement from The Tribute to Honor Organiza- tion.

State Flags in by of Admission Flag of Honor first thought. Because of the size, the lack of battle distress and vari- ous markings, it probably was from an auxiliary boat or perhaps a per- sonal flag. None the less, it was an interesting puzzle.

Mike showed off his Franklin Mint striking of 64 sterling silver ingots of the flags of the American Revo- lution. Elmer, Mike’s step-father, got them in 1975—all at once—he couldn’t wait for one a month! No one realized that there were that many different flags from that pe- riod and the presentation case shows them beautifully.

Detail of Flag of Honor (Continued on page 2)

Portland Flag Association Publication 5 The Seasons sons of the year. The symbolism is familiar with as the first day of is black = winter, green = spring, each season—but also there are By Scott Mainwaring yellow = summer, = four mid-season days which corre- Not to be confused with the works of fall. Rather than have a flag for spond to Groundhog Day Vivaldi!—The editor. each season, I have eight flags to (midwinter), May Day (mid-spring), mark special days: the equinoxes midsummer, and Halloween/All Here are some flag designs I've (= equal horizontal bicolors in my Saints (mid-autumn). Plus a too- been playing with, thinking about scheme), and solstices (= unequal busy "bonus flag" to represent "the the seasons. The first grouping horizontal bicolors) that everyone cycle of the seasons" as a sort of shows nine flags, based on the sea- spiral.

Summer solstice

June 21st

Mid-spring Mid-summer

May 1st August 1st

Vernal equinox Autumnal equinox The Four Seasons March 21st September 21st

Mid-winter Mid-autumn

February 1st November 1st

Winter solstice December 21st

The second grouping has some ideas for flags for each month, based on the same color symbol- ism. I think they rotate around the opposite direction as those on the January April July October first flag; sorry about that! I'm not so satisfied with these.

If anyone knows of other attempts to make seasonal or month-related February May August November flags, I'd be very interested. I hope everyone finds these amusing, and please pass on my regrets for once again having to be out of town.

March June September December

6 Portland Flag Association Publication What Was that Flag? Answers to last quiz What’s that Flag? Did you realize that there are ap- We all recognize the common in- proximately 137 flags with some ternational organizations’ flags, but form of the Scandinavian ? what about some of these that are “Approximately,” because several less known? are not official and have multiple versions. Interestingly enough, most of them are from cities, towns and municipalities in The Nether- East Karelia, lands. Karelia is the western area of Rus- sia, next to . In 1920 a flag, presumably like this, was de- signed. Currently it is used as an , but apparently has no official status.

Åland Islands, Finland The Åland Islands are a Finnish autonomous province in the Baltic Sea, but the population is predomi- nantly Swedish, thus the Swedish colors. The ferry from Turku to Stockholm makes a brief stop there. ,

The Faroe Islands are situated about halfway between and and are a self- governing community within the Kingdom of Denmark.

Bayamón, The second most populous city in Puerto Rico, Bayamón is famous for its fried pork rinds. I have no idea why a Scandinavian Cross is in the . This is the same de- Vestlandet, Norway sign that was proposed for East Vestlandet is the western part of Karelia in 1930, but never adopted. Norway, but Jan Oskar Engene, a vexillologist in Bergen, has never seen this flag flown!

Portland Flag Association Publication 7 July Meeting So Long, Harry In 1994, Harry was the prime or- ganizer of NAVA 28 in Portland The next meeting of the Portland and was currently a Co-chair of Flag Association will be at 7 p.m., NAVA 42 in Austin, TX. While Thursday, July 10, 2008, at Ted planning the NAVA meeting in Kaye’s house, 2235 NW Aspen 1994, the idea for a regional flag Ave., telephone (503) 223-4660. organization was conceived. Sub- See the map below. sequently, Harry put together a quarterly meeting of the interested We look forward to seeing those of parties in the Portland area but al- you that have been otherwise com- ways attributed the success of the mitted, and hear some new war sto- Portland Flag Association to others ries, see some different flags, and since he was merely “the keeper of hear some provocative discussion. the list.” Since we have not spent much time Harry Oswald Harry joined NAVA in 1988 and discussing the flag for our group, 1927-2008 never missed a NAVA or ICV perhaps people can come prepared meeting, except once when he was to do that. It has been suggested Harry died March 1, 2008, in Col- in the hospital. He had a formida- that we bring crayons and create on lege Station, Texas. He had spent ble collection of flag books from site! The other question is how will most of his time recently in Texas many countries. Whether he could the flag be used, once it is decided after living for years in Pendleton read the text or not, he savored the upon? Any and all flags, books or and in Portland, his home town. graphics. More recently, he helped articles are welcome for “show and His career as an engineer for organize the Japanese Vexillological tell.” ODOT was complemented by his passions for sports (especially wres- Association since Japanese signal If you can’t get to the meeting, per- tling), grandkids, shooting, history, flags were of particular interest to haps you can give the editor some- and flags. him. Among his scholarly pursuits thing to share with our readers. were cannery flags of the Pacific Northwest—he gave a talk on the subject at the 18th International Congress of in Victoria, BC in 1999.

Harry’s generosity was legend—his friends and colleagues around the world would frequently receive flags or books that he’d acquired on their behalf. His last visit with PFA members came as a surprise, when he scheduled a visit to Port- land to coincide with a PFA meet- ing in 2007. PFA offers its condo- lences to Harry’s family and friends, and honors its founder, Harry Oswald.