Portland Flag Association Publication 1 Portland Flag Association “Free, and Worth Every Penny!” Issue 19 October 2008 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Flag Flying Days Flag Flying Days 1 By John Hood At first I wanted the flags of the Many of you know that I collect states and countries I had visited. 2 Flag Related Websites 3’ x 5’ flags and fly two, plus the Mike Hale and his staff were very Next Meeting Announcement 3 current U.S. flag, from the front accommodating. From there I ex- of our house daily. At the last panded exponentially, acquiring the Flags in the News 3 meeting we started telling how we unusual flags from wherever I October 2008 Flutterings 4 got interested in flags, but quickly could—Ron Strachan in Australia, ran out of time. My interest ini- Doreen Braverman in Canada, Paul Book Reviews 5 tially began with geography, but in Hemple in Northumberland and 6 The Flag Quiz San Francisco we lived on a busy James Babcock in Hampton Roads. street and had a second story The late Harry Oswald gave me porch which lent itself perfectly some that I could not have gotten for flying flags. Almost eighteen anywhere else. years ago we moved to Portland and our house was even more Part two of this collection was appropriate for flying flags. It is a knowing when they should be corner lot, on a rise, on an even flown. Having been born a Catho- busier street. lic, it was vital to know when to It seems like the less a (Continued on page 2) statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. If you wish to compliment the editor, or to contribute in the future, contact John Hood —Frank McKinney Hubbard at 503-238-7666 or [email protected]. If you wish to complain, call your mother. 2 Portland Flag Association Publication Flag Flying Days D.B. Cooper Day for Cascadia, miss prowling through the Central (Continued from page 1) Guy Fawkes Day for England Library. To keep current, I rely on (although it is official in Ber- the scholarly publications from the genuflect, whether or not I knew muda), Senior Citizens’ Day for various vexillological associations I the words. Therefore I needed to Oklahoma. Some countries have belong to. find the occasions to fly these flags a lot of days to fly the flag Each year the list must be corrected that were accumulating. From the (Mexico has 24) and some have to update the occasions that have library (this was before the internet few (United Arab Emirates has moveable dates. This has caused was popular), I got the addresses of one). me to download lunar calendars, every country’s embassy or mission At NAVA28, held here in Port- Hebrew calendars and Islamic cal- in Washington, D.C. and wrote to land in 1994, Kevin Harrington of endars. It becomes a fun puzzle each, asking for their official flag- the Canadian Flag Association because in some cases the date de- flying days. Surprisingly, I received was kind enough to review my pends upon which side of the In- responses to about half of my let- first draft of “Occasions to Fly ternational Date Line is being refer- ters. A second letter got almost Flags” and offered me some ex- enced. half of those remaining. Some cellent suggestions that I have even put me on their mailing list used. Then Mike Hale wanted to Currently there are many sites with for newsletters. Others responded incorporate the list into his web flag flying days posted, including an in their native language, which site so that people browsing for excellent one at Flags of the World made for some interesting transla- flags could also see when they (FOTW). Occasionally I will cross tions; and one, Bahrain, said it was could be flown. check one of my dates with another not allowed for non-nationals to fly list, but usually I let it stand. After the flag without their government’s Sometimes people come to the all, it was just created for my own permission. door to acknowledge my flying amusement and use. their county’s flag on the occasion Realizing that half measures availed Some Flag Related Websites of independence, or to ask if this me nothing, I decided to collect the is a consulate. One man said he dates for every entity I could— NAVA http://www.nava.org had not seen the Maltese Flag country, region, province, state, since high school in Valletta, Flag Institute (United Kingdom) county, city or municipality. Then I while the Manx family up the http://www.flaginstitute.org had to decide which dates to use street always insures that the for the “Flag Day.” That proved to Flags of the World http:// triskelion is flown on Tynwald www.fotw.net be daunting, so I became somewhat Day. arbitrary. After all, this was not an Elmer’s Flag & Banner http:// academic exercise, it was for fun! www.elmersflag.com Some flags, particularly in the Com- Darwin, Northern Territory monwealth, had multiple dates of (Australia) http:// adoption: date approved, date ga- www.nationalflags.com.au zetted, date adopted, etc. Then the occasions the flag should be flown Flag Society of Australia http:// came into question. Of course the To augment the dates I had, I www.flagsaustralia.com.au national days were there, as were poured over travel books, UPS Flag Research Center http:// the birthdays and death days of sig- calendars and the CIA Factbook. www.flagresearchcenter.com nificance, but I also added those Then the internet came along and non-official days that sometimes things got a lot easier, but I do Southern African Vexillological encapsulate the spirit of the region: Assoc. http://www.sa-va.org.za Portland Flag Association Publication 3 January Meeting Flags in the News The next meeting of the Portland Mike Hale told us of the notice in must have some United States Flag Association will be at 7 p.m., The Oregonian of a contest to de- Flags in the background! Mar- Thursday, January 8, 2009, at John sign a new state flag in honor of shall Goldberg brought this to my Hood’s house, 208 SE 39th Ave., our sesquicentennial. In the fol- attention some time ago and sus- telephone (503) 238-7666. See the lowing Sunday’s edition pected there was a Jungian an- map below. (10/19/08) of the paper was a swer. I don’t know about that, much longer article on the subject but I did start paying attention. We look forward to seeing those of with some history and quotes by The President usually only has you that have been otherwise com- Mike, Ted Kaye and Carita Culver one U.S. Flag and the Presidential mitted, and see some different of Ashland, a member of NAVA. Flag whereas the Secretary of the flags, and hear some provocative Then there were the TV stories Treasury had three U.S. Flags and discussion. There may be some with Mike showing and talking two Department of the Treasury results from the state flag contest. about the current two-sided flag. Flags. Why didn’t he use his per- Any and all flags, books or articles Information, rules and design tips sonal flag? I haven’t seen the are welcome for “show and tell.” can be found at http:// Secretary of Homeland Security www.oregonlive.com/oregon. with either his personal flag (if If you can’t get to the meeting, per- The contest ends November 21, there is one yet) or the depart- haps you can give the editor some- 2008. mental flag. The candidates, thing to share with our readers. As however, are keeping the flag you can see, snippets from any- Between the campaigning and the manufacturers in business. A few where can be used and it gives you economic melt-down, television months ago there were two or an opportunity to add to your cur- has been inundated with politi- three flags on stage, but recently I riculum vitae. cians and talking heads speaking saw nine behind Senator Obama very authoritatively from behind and at least seven behind Senator podiums. It seems to be that to McCain (but then he had a lapel speak really authoritatively, one pin, too). At least half a dozen were behind Senator Clinton and they all started falling down as she left the stage. Perhaps Mar- shall is right. Remember, πάντα ρε ι = every- thing flows. — John Schilke 4 Portland Flag Association Publication October 2008 Flutterings You Need to Know We had a new member with us at sides. This makes for a very to date on what was in the other this meeting. He was Max Liber- heavy flag and would take a gale English speaking vexillological pub- man, a senior at Riverdale High force wind to fly properly. lications from around the world, School. Max happened to see Ted including the email messages from at a social function with a mug the Flag Research center. Flag- decorated with flags in his hand— master, from the Flag Institute in an instant ice breaker. Lets hope England had several great articles Max is not scared off by the eccen- on flags of the Channel Islands, tricity of our group. Bulgaria, Latvia and the navy of land-locked Kazakhstan. Many Ted Kaye presented a slide show of Comoros 1978-1992 thanks to the editor, Michael Faul. NAVA 42 in Austin, TX that he Crux Australis, from The Flag attended the week before. It was Society of Australia had some great obvious that a lot of vexiloquacity pictures of the World Youth Day was heard.