Why I Oughta...

A few weeks back, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a bill that provides for a path to create a new State of Illinois flag .  Redesigning government flags has been *a thing* for a while - which can be directly traced back to this TED Talk by Roman Mars on vexillology .  And....he was right:  government flags are terrible - with a few exceptions.  Since that TED talk, there's been a bunch of movement(s) to bring new flags forward - all of which have been signficant improvements on the previous (usually low-thought, ugly flags with writing on them).   The Illinois flag - which features the seal of the state - is one of those terrible flags.  It has all the marks of a terrible flag (per Roman Mars):  has too many colors, has tiny symbols that are hard to see when flying on a tall pole and (I think the worst of bad-flag sins) has writing on it.  Now...the State of Illinois has PLENTY of big and signficant problems and the state flag SHOULD be ...

We moved in right before 4th of July last year, but I don't think we had time (or the wherewithal) to put out a flag to mark our country's birthday.  This year, however, was a different story.  You can see that I put out our Old Glory, draped from the front porch top railing.  This is the same 48 Star Flag that I bought at an Elmhurst Estate Sale back a few Summers .  It came with weights on the bottom of it, so in it's past life, it was clearly hung in this vertical orientation.  But, turns out, there's a 'right way' to hang a vertical flag.  See here in this earlier post that I hung the flag with the field of 48 stars in the top right .  According to this post , the proper way is to have the Union to the flag's own right and to the observer's left.  Hence, why I posted it the way I did this year on the porch.  We have a really nice wraparound porch and I think it deserves a nice flag.  I have a pole, but the issue is that the loc...

More buildings and accessories are springing up on the Mantleburg line.  In addition to the American Flyer bridge that I posted about yesterday and the Plasticville Town Hall that we bought at the Christmas Train Show out in Wheaton, we also bought this Lionel Flag pole that features both the American flag and a Lionel flag standing at attention.  As you can see on the box, they are showing a red Lionel pennant under the American Flag, but when we opened it up, it was flying a blue Lionel pennant.  Just poking around on the web, it seems that's common?  Here's a listing showing the exact setup with red on the box and blue inside .  Seems like the new Mantleburg Town Hall could use a flagpole outside, right?  Wonder if we can make up a little "Village of Mantleburg" flag and run it right under the Lionel flag?  Of course, we'd follow Roman Mars lead and be good vexillologists and come up with a quality flag with no words on it, right? 

Earlier this week, I posted about the sweet vintage Fighting Illini sweater and Austrian Moose creamer that I picked up at an Elmhurst Estate Sale and I mentioned that there was another item I bought that morning. Well...here it is. Scroll back up there and count the stars. That's right.  There's just 48. Growing up, my Dad always flew a 48 star flag for some reason.  I think he just thought it was cool.  And...largely because of that, I think it is cool, too. This is the first one that I've come across in all my years of garage sale/estate sale-ing.  Turns out....they're probably not *that* rare.  The 48 star flag flew for 47 years (From 1912 to 1959) and up until then, was the longest 'serving' flag in our country's history . I have it proudly displayed at Equation Boy/Man's house for now, but once our new old farmhouse is built (gasp!  Yeah!  There is some news, there!!!  I'll post the details at some point), it'll go great on ...