February 12th, 2020

Tim and I were sitting at a rather long traffic light the other day, and I noticed that the car in front of us had a bumper sticker on it.  Which made me realize that I don't see a lot of bumper stickers on cars anymore.  A trend that I heartily applaud by the way.

But I do see a lot of those car window stickers instead.  I'm not certain that this is an improvement but to each his or her own of course.  These stickers might indicate the drivers favourite team:

Or it could be an advertisement for their business:

Perhaps they are especially proud of whatever it is that comprises their family.  In this case a very interesting and complex family!:

I've seen window stickers that are memorials to the dearly departed:

And the ones that indicate their pet preference:

And of course I have seen LOADS of those funny little white ovals that have mysterious letters in it. Oooooo top secret stuff! I assume this one is for the great city of Boston, though I have no way of knowing for sure:

The car we were behind had the white sticker one.  The letters inside were ME which of course is the abbreviation for the state of Maine.  But it could also have literally  meant, 'me' or perhaps it was the owners initials...Mary Elizabeth?  Or Mark Edwards?  I could only guess, though the guessing itself is fun.

But on the other side of the back window was a second sticker that had me completely baffled.  It was, I could only assume, a flag.  It had 3 vertical stripes, blue, white and red (from left to right) and in the blue stripe was a gold star.  I had no clue what sort of flag it was.  And it intrigued me.  So much so that I looked it up later.  Turns out it was the flag of Madawaska Maine.  

I am certainly no flag savant but excuse me what?

I of course know that each country has it's own flag.   And further I know that every state has it's own flag.  And Capital Cities of each state have a flag.  But I had NO idea that any random city that wants to can have a flag!  Did you know that?  I didn't!  Surprise!

Madawaska Maine is way up by the Canadian border and the primary business there is a paper mill.  The population in 2010 was reported as 4,035 people.  Back in it's early days it was a hunting and meeting place for the Maliseet nation.  As European settlers moved in, they weren't especially concerned with it being English, French or Native American.  They sort of incorporated all of the surrounding cultures into one.  In 1842 a treaty gave most of the area to Maine (and therefore the USA) even though the majority of it's residence spoke French and aligned themselves more with Quebec.  Oh well, politics being what they are, it happened anyway.

I am very impressed with this little town way up at the top Maine that has such a strong sense of itself that they created their own flag.  Wow!  I wonder why more cities don't do this?  

Venice Florida has no flag.  I'm seriously disappointed. 

​ Sarasota has one:

Tampa Florida has one:

But Venice does not.  I was trying to imagine what a flag of Venice might look like.  Hmmm.  Venice is the shark tooth capital so maybe something with a shark's tooth on it.  I understand that the state of Florida is the lightening capital of the world so maybe a sharks' tooth with lightening!  That would be a statement for sure.  But of course we don't want to scare anyone away so maybe not

Maybe dolphins or pelicans or palm trees or the pier or a sunset or, I don't know, maybe something truly Venetian like the flag of the real Venice Italy could be incorporated.  That's a fancyschmancy one:

​But as it stands right now, we have no flag.  In front of our city hall are the stars and stripes of the American flag of course and the flag of the state of Florida but I just think it would be kind of awesome to also have a flag of Venice.

I wonder who I need to talk to about this.

If the little town of Madawaska Me can have it's own flag, it seems to me that any town should.  Let me rephrase that, every town should.