Patriotism

Rumor has it (though I haven’t actually checked for sure) the city I live in is home to the world’s largest American flag.

The story seems likely, because right off the highway, there is an enormous American flag hoisted way up in the air and flapping away. Sheboygan is a good city to put up an enormous flag, because the city has a lot of wind. In fact, I cannot for the life of me explain why the city is not making headlines for competing with the Dutch for wind power open-mindedness. It’d be a gold mine. Keeping your car on the road is difficult half the time. I have to imagine 4000 turbines spinning away would help.

The part about the flag that strikes me as odd is how it’s lit during the night. They turn on several extremely powerful spotlights on the platform below, and point them (more or less) straight up. This does indeed light up the flag very well.

The part I find odd is what else it does. It lights up the sky WAY above the flag also. On cloudy nights, the flag appears to be centered underneath an apocalyptic end-of-times burning sky. From ten miles off, you can see the bright patch on the horizon. The right shaped cloud can make it look like a tear across the heavens.

In addition, in case the enormous spot-lit flag was too subtle, a large red airplane traffic light blinks on and off on top the flagpole, just above the flag itself.

I concede that it’s nitpicky, but I find these backdrops to the almost excessive patriotism interesting.