Monday, August 20, 2018

the old men and their godchildren

L to R:
Mike, Dave, Mark, Kevin


With our godchildren now, L to R:
Iain, Mark, Emma, Dave, 'Rina, Mike, Kevin, Rachael


(With thanks to Mike for texting me the pics.)





5 comments:

John Mac said...

I've never seen a star pattern like that on the flag. What's the meaning?

Kevin Kim said...

I'll have to ask Mike. Stay tuned.

The Maximum Leader said...

I'm glad you got the pics. My internet has been wonky since those bad storms over a week ago and things haven't been going like I would expect. It was good to have all the godfathers and godchildren together for a picture. I'm glad my wife thought of getting the picture when we could. It is unlikely we should get this crew together again any time too soon.

John - That is a good question on the American Flag. I love historical flags. The star pattern for the US flag was not standardized until the 1890s (as I recall). So many states adopted "national" flags that were all fine to fly as long as they had the requisite number of stars. I'm embarrassed to admit that I can't recall which state used the flag I am flying in font of my house right now. It was any one of a number of midwestern states (Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, or Ohio). If you check out some photos, lithographs, or painting of Civil War scenes, you can see different star patterns in the flags. I just happen to like the image of lots of little stars forming one bigger star. No specific meaning after that.

Kevin Kim said...

If this is a pre-1890s design, that would explain why there are fewer than 50 stars on the flag. Interesting.

The Maximum Leader said...

If I had to guess, there are 34 or 36 stars on that flag. And I believe it was flown by some Michigan and Ohio regiments during the Civil War. I know it is a Civil War era flag.

One of my all time favorite US flags, and the one I few prior to putting up the one you see in these photos, is the Bennington Flag. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennington_flag

I am very partial to it. When this one wears out, I'll likely go back to a Bennington Flag.

Or I might go with the Serapis Flag. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapis_flag Though, given its history, I feel that flying a Serapis Flag on my house might be odd. If I had a boat...