s/o Flags: I saw 110 American flags in an 18 mile drive

[Garga]

I've been thinking about the thread where a boardie not from the US asked people in the US if it was common to fly the American flag outside of houses.

 

I was driving my son to his Spanish class today and started paying attention to all the flags we were passing, so on the ride home (an 18 mile trip each way), I asked my son to keep tabs on how many flags we passed.

 

We passed 110 American flags. 

 

What that doesn't include:

 

**6 houses that had red, white, and blue half-circle banners hanging from their porches--usually a row of three banners in a row over the railing of the porch.

 

**Red, white, and blue flags with bands of the colors on them from top to bottom used as "OPEN" signs outside of businesses.

 

**Red, white, and blue signs in yards for a couple of realty companies and for a judge who is up for re-election this year.  

 

What that does include:

 

**Flags outside of houses

 

**Flags outside of businesses

 

**Flags outside of government buildings (a court house, a municipal building, a library.)

 

 

45 mph was too fast for my son to try to keep track of categories like "outside of a house", "outside of a business", etc, so he just grouped them all together.  If he saw a flag, he marked it down.

 

 

FULL DISCLOSURE:

 

I live 10 miles up the road from Gettysburg and drive right through the middle of the town of Gettysburg to get to the Spanish class.  The Spanish class is another few miles past Gettysburg.  So, perhaps we live in a particularly patriotic area?  It doesn't feel like it, but maybe, just because of Gettysburg?

 

However, out of all 110 flags, only 25 of them were in Gettysburg proper.  The remaining 85 were outside.  We counted G'burg as the town itself and 1/2 mile radius around it.  Once we got more than a half mile outside of town, we put those flags in a different category.

 

 

(Here's the post that inspired me to count the flags on my drive:  http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/643451-so-flags/)

[Guest]

That's a lot of flags! 

[creekland]

Memorial Day is coming later this month.  I saw flags on sale at the store with that reminder.

 

Also... locally... head honcho was just nearby and you know how popular he is in our area.

 

We're going to be heading to Canada relatively soon.  I'm not sure I'll remember, but I have it in mind to count on both sides of the border and see if I see a difference there.  It might be better if I count the first week in July when both countries celebrate their independence rather than right now when we have a patriotic holiday coming and I don't believe they do.

[Guest]

Federal and state flags are both extremely common here as well. 110 is impressive though!

[MEmama]

Wow. I almost never see them here other than the usual weird places (car lots, post office maybe?). I'd say they were way more common where we lived in eastern Canada than where we live now. I think it must be really, really regional and situational whatever country you're in.

 

Eta I'm not sure I even know our state flag! Lol

Edited May 1, 2017 by MEmama

[scholastica]

Memorial Day is coming later this month. I saw flags on sale at the store with that reminder.

 

Also... locally... head honcho was just nearby and you know how popular he is in our area.

 

We're going to be heading to Canada relatively soon. I'm not sure I'll remember, but I have it in mind to count on both sides of the border and see if I see a difference there. It might be better if I count the first week in July when both countries celebrate their independence rather than right now when we have a patriotic holiday coming and I don't believe they do.

Don't you mean "Hair Honcho"?

[Butter]

IME the Gettysburg area IS a bit more patriotic and flag heavy than some other areas.  Also, it is Loyalty Day today and so it was encouraged that flags be flown in celebration of that.

[MercyA]

IME the Gettysburg area IS a bit more patriotic and flag heavy than some other areas.  Also, it is Loyalty Day today and so it was encouraged that flags be flown in celebration of that.

 

Loyalty Day?!? I just googled it. 

 

I find it a bit scary, TBH.

 

ETA: Not being critical of you, Butter--I appreciate the info and found the holiday's history on wiki interesting.

Edited May 1, 2017 by MercyA

[Garga]

I've never heard of loyalty day!  Maybe that was it. ?  I expected our total count to be about 40.  I was shocked when my son tallied them up and it was 110.  

 

We'll be making the trip all next school year as well for Spanish II.  I'll count again in October and see if there are still 110 flags up in October.  There are no patriotic holidays in October that I'm missing, right?

 

Next time I drive south to Baltimore, I'll count the flags on the way down.  The further away we get from Gburg, maybe the less patriot it'll be.  

 

(Loyalty day...?)

 

 

 

 

[creekland]

I've never heard of Loyalty Day either. I didn't know it was a thing.

 

I have local news on now and they haven't mentioned it - at least - not from 5:45pm to now.

[Guest]

I've never heard of loyalty day! Maybe that was it. ? I expected our total count to be about 40. I was shocked when my son tallied them up and it was 110.

 

We'll be making the trip all next school year as well for Spanish II. I'll count again in October and see if there are still 110 flags up in October. There are no patriotic holidays in October that I'm missing, right?

 

Next time I drive south to Baltimore, I'll count the flags on the way down. The further away we get from Gburg, maybe the less patriot it'll be.

 

(Loyalty day...?)

Some might say Columbus Day, although I wouldn't fly the flag in honor of it (though I fly the flad daily when my flag is not stuffed down a groundhog hole).

 

I'm very impressed with your experiment, though. I'd like to duplicate it in my area.

[Garga]

Because you included businesses, I am not at all surprised that you got that many.  Also inspired by the thread, I have taken more notice of flags in my neighborhood.  There are 5 flags in the half mile between my house and the entrance of my neighborhood.  At least, 5 that go up on a regular basis.  But then when I think of businesses, sure, LOTS of businesses and organizations put flags up.  Fast food restaurants, gas stations, car dealerships, etc etc. 

 

Yes, I agree.  If I'd have thought of it ahead of time and if my son was faster with his pencil, I'd have liked to have grouped the flags by whether or not they were businesses or houses or government buildings.  There were certainly a bunch of flags in front of businesses and gov't buildings, but the amount in front of houses wasn't anything to sneeze at.  There were a lot of them, too, though I wouldn't try to guess what percentage.  

 

I did expect to see a huge number in Gettysburg proper, but there weren't as many as I expected, though 25 is a lot.  The vast majority of businesses we passed did not have flags.  Gburg is only 1.66 square miles, so it's tiny, and the majority of the buildings are private homes. 

 

Surrounding the towns that I was driving to and from is a lot of open farmland on pretty roads without a lot of businesses.  It's not like the suburbs of a city with businesses every few yards.  It's houses and fields and horses and farms and sometimes some chickens running around with businesses scattered throughout.  

 

For fun, these are two blog posts I wrote about 5 years ago.  If you scroll down to the first picture in each post, that's what it looks like around here.  In this one, it's about 4 miles from my house and I'm standing on the side of the main road to take the picture.  In this one, it's about 1 mile from my house at a horse farm we went to for a field trip. It's pretty.  Lots of land and sky.  Lots of flags!

Edited May 2, 2017 by Garga

[TechWife]

This is a new one for me, too.

 

The Presidential Proclamation of Law Day can be found here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/01/president-donald-j-trump-proclaims-may-1-2017-law-day-usa

[SKL]

About a week ago I was out for a walk in a quiet neighborhood.  I noticed a flag and thought of that flag post, so I decided to notice how many houses had US flags out.  I estimate about a fourth of the houses had them out.  Often the homes with flags were clumped together i.e. the likelihood of having a flag was higher if the neighbor next door / across the street had one.

[creekland]

Ok, I sort of counted Canadian flags today mostly along Rt 2 between Johnstown and Morrisburg, Ont. (32.6km - 20 miles).  Some were also in Cardinal (a town along the way).  I say "sort of" because we were mainly looking at the St Lawrence river which is pretty high right now due to all the rain.  I know I missed some flags on the non-river side due to the scenery taking precedence.

 

I counted 96 Canadian flags ALL at residences.  I didn't count the businesses flying flags (there were several).  There was also one place flying both the Canadian and Netherlands flag.  NO US flags located on the Canadian side of the border at residences - only one at a Canadian Legion type of place. (On the US side it is pretty common to see Canadian and US flags at businesses.)  Residences ranged from trailers to townhouses to old houses to new houses to large mansion types houses to farms.  Some of each type had flags flying.  There were also some flagpoles without flags (weather lately has been cold and rather icky with snow flurries yesterday).  At times there were stretches where 3 - 4 houses in a row had a flag.  Usually they were more spread out to say, 1 in 10 or so.

 

I stand behind my personal experience that at least for "my" section of Canada, flying the Canadian flag seems pretty darn proportional to what I see in the US.  Anyone who thinks Canadians don't fly their own flag at residences needs to vacation along Rt 2, because if we'd gone the other direction today I know I'd have had similar numbers.  This was even on a regular ole Tuesday during some iffy weather times.

 

We might go to Ottawa yet this week.  Time will tell how my mom is feeling.  It'll be interesting if things change once one leaves the border.

[nixpix5]

I rarely see them in my neck of the woods. We have one on our house but we are a rarity in our neighborhood. I wish I saw them more often.

[Wheres Toto]

I rarely see flags around here.  Mainly on car dealers, post offices and municipal buildings.    Some people will put them out at home during holiday weekends - Memorial Day and Independence Day.  Other than that, hardly ever.

[Guest]

DS and I did this experiment a couple of times as well. The average seems to fall right at 32 American flags in a 9.2 mile stretch. This was going different routes, but those were all coming out approximately the same. About 32 for 9 miles.

[KungFuPanda]

It's so common that it didn't occur to me that other countries wouldn't do the same with their own flags. I never thought about it until this thread. I've traveled a bit, but I guess it just didn't register whether I was seeing flags or not in other countries.

[KarenNC]

I'll try to remember to have my daughter tally the number of US and Confederate flags we see while out tomorrow. 

[Baseball mom]

At the moment our flag isn't out.  I miss it but we are having some issues with where we mount it.  Fixing that is on my "to do" list.

 

I do find I see more flags around memorial day and July 4th. 

[Hilltopmom]

Our neighborhood has a newsletter & this week challenged everyone to fly a flag from Memorial Day to July 4th this year.

 

We do a big deal on the 4th here, kid parade, picnic in neighborhood beach, etc.

 

My husband wants to put up our British flag (we're re enactors), I suggested our Jolly Roger, lol.

I think we won't go there, being the new neighbors & all.

 

We do have a mini garden flag hanger thing that I put a patriotic decoration on in the summer out front.

We have a neat fronk deck that would look great with one of those buntings draped across it, but I'm too cheap to buy one.

[KarenNC]

OK, in running around our town yesterday we saw 45 US flags, 8 NC state flags, and 2 Confederate flags. The majority of the US flags were outside of businesses. Surprisingly, we passed several schools and none were flying a flag at all, even though it was during the school day while school was in session. One US large US flag was flying from the bed of a pickup truck. I was surprised we didn't see more Confederate flags as I am used to seeing a few on any given day. I suppose the decals and clothing with the Confederate flag are more common than actual flags. Both the ones we saw were flying at houses, and didn't see any of the ones flying both the US and Confederate flags on this particular trip, though we have come across those before.

[Garga]

OK, in running around our town yesterday we saw 45 US flags, 8 NC state flags, and 2 Confederate flags. The majority of the US flags were outside of businesses. Surprisingly, we passed several schools and none were flying a flag at all, even though it was during the school day while school was in session. One US large US flag was flying from the bed of a pickup truck. I was surprised we didn't see more Confederate flags as I am used to seeing a few on any given day. I suppose the decals and clothing with the Confederate flag are more common than actual flags. Both the ones we saw were flying at houses, and didn't see any of the ones flying both the US and Confederate flags on this particular trip, though we have come across those before.

 

 

That's a lot of flags!  And you didn't make the mistake of counting on May Day (which I didn't even know was a thing when I counted my 110 flags.)

 

I can't remember if I saw Confederate flags or not, but if I did, they'd probably be in Gettysburg just because...Gettysburg.  Otherwise PA is a northern state and it's not common to see the Confederate flag here.  

[KatieJ]

We were discussing flags at my sewing group this week. One of the women is from the Netherlands. She is now in a condo, but when they lived in their house, they flew an American flag. When they had guests from the Netherlands or Germany, they also flew the flag from that country. I thought it was awesome.

[creekland]

OK, in running around our town yesterday we saw 45 US flags, 8 NC state flags, and 2 Confederate flags. The majority of the US flags were outside of businesses. Surprisingly, we passed several schools and none were flying a flag at all, even though it was during the school day while school was in session. One US large US flag was flying from the bed of a pickup truck. I was surprised we didn't see more Confederate flags as I am used to seeing a few on any given day. I suppose the decals and clothing with the Confederate flag are more common than actual flags. Both the ones we saw were flying at houses, and didn't see any of the ones flying both the US and Confederate flags on this particular trip, though we have come across those before.

 

There were several Ontario Provincial flags flying in Canada as well as a couple of "Canada 150" flags (which I had to look up as I didn't know what it was - the flag - not the fact that this is Canada's 150th year).  These were all at residences.  My numbers would have been higher if I had included businesses.

 

Back home (close to Garga) I see Confederate flags fairly often.  Sometimes it's due to "Gettysburg," and sometimes it's due to the hoopla over the Confederate flag.  One needs to know the person flying it to know which is which.  If it's in the back of a pickup, it's always been the latter IME.  I haven't seen any of those up here in the north (NY/Canada).  There was one pickup truck in Canada with a Canadian flag.  That sight surprised me TBH.  It may be the only time I recall one of those.  There were also a fair number of "Welcome," "Sports Team," or themed flags, but not nearly as many as national flags.

[Garga]

There were several Ontario Provincial flags flying in Canada as well as a couple of "Canada 150" flags (which I had to look up as I didn't know what it was - the flag - not the fact that this is Canada's 150th year). These were all at residences. My numbers would have been higher if I had included businesses.

 

Back home (close to Garga) I see Confederate flags fairly often. Sometimes it's due to "Gettysburg," and sometimes it's due to the hoopla over the Confederate flag. One needs to know the person flying it to know which is which. If it's in the back of a pickup, it's always been the latter IME. I haven't seen any of those up here in the north (NY/Canada). There was one pickup truck in Canada with a Canadian flag. That sight surprised me TBH. It may be the only time I recall one of those. There were also a fair number of "Welcome," "Sports Team," or themed flags, but not nearly as many as national flags.

I wondered whether you noticed Confederate flags or not. I've only noticed them a couple of times not in a Gettysburg context, but now I'm going to be on the look out for them. The few times I noticed them, they did seem to be being flown by people wanting to be controversial about it. I'm going to start looking for them to see if they've been there all along and I didn't notice them.

[creekland]

I wondered whether you noticed Confederate flags or not. I've only noticed them a couple of times not in a Gettysburg context, but now I'm going to be on the look out for them. The few times I noticed them, they did seem to be being flown by people wanting to be controversial about it. I'm going to start looking for them to see if they've been there all along and I didn't notice them.

 

They aren't anywhere near as common as National flags, but they catch my eye (not in a good way TBH) when I see them.  The only time I think they are appropriate is in Gettysburg when the context is historical.  I'd feel the same way about the Nazi Swastika flag.