The Summer Flag Returns

To The Main Street Pole

By Andrew Gorosko

Amid blustery winds last weekend, a crew of volunteers grappled with hundreds of square feet of billowing red, white, and blue fabric while performing the annual task of lowering the small cold-weather flag and then hoisting up the large warm-weather flag at the Main Street flagpole.

Resident David Lydem, a former town police lieutenant who oversees flagpole operations, orchestrated the flag changing. Mr Lydem has been the keeper of the flag since 1984.

Mr Lydem had been at the flagpole several days earlier, repainting the lowest section of the structure that stands in the center of the intersection of Main Street, Church Hill Road, and West Street.

Newtown Lions Club members served as a ground crew for the flag-changing project on the morning of May 20. The Lions Club raised the funds to buy the large nylon flag, which measures 20 feet by 30 feet. The small flag measures 12 feet by 18 feet.

Police, who were positioned at the intersection, stopped traffic, as needed, to allow the flag changing to proceed.

Members of the Newtown Hook & Ladder Volunteer Fire Company brought in the town’s aerial truck, extending its 105-foot-long ladder to the flag’s rigging points, which are situated well above Main Street. The rigging points are located above the streetlights and floodlights that are mounted on the pole.

Carefully, amid the stiff winds, Mr Lydem lowered the small flag from atop the pole. That flag had become weather-beaten during its months atop the staff, with the trailing edges of the multicolored standard starting to fray and pull apart.

The fresh large new flag, which was then hoisted up the towering white pole, took well to the strong winds that morning, with its fabric quickly extending horizontally atop the 100-foot-tall mast.

The large flag will probably fly on the pole until October or November, depending upon the flag’s condition.