Heck Of A Guy

You’re A Grand Old Rag - Uh, Well, You’re Certainly Ragged

Bad Seal - Good Flag

I first learned that McHenry County had a flag three months ago when the County Board called for the revision of the County Seal, issuing a Whereas-laden explanatory proclamation or two and alerting the media to the impending change. One of the details disclosed in the process was that the County Flag would serve as a model for the new seal.

From the news stories and County documents, I put together a list the requirements and recommendations pertinent to the proposed new Seal Of McHenry County that was posted in McHenry County Seal Makeover Makes The News:

The seal

1. must be “unique to McHenry County”
2. must be “readily identifiable”
3. should be inspiring and imaginative but certainly must not be “boring”
4. should “reflect the character of the rapidly growing county where farms and new housing developments coexist”¹
5. should incorporate the elements of the McHenry County Flag, which apparently include “the county name and its year of incorporation along with images of a cow, an ear of corn and a fish jumping above a waterway as the sun sets behind it.”²

My inference from the context of the news stories and proclamations was that the design of the County Flag was free of the faults listed for the current County Seal and that incorporating elements of that flag’s design into the new seal would resolve those problems.

Naturally, I was curious about a flag so unique and so readily identifiable with McHenry County, yet so paradoxically devoid of anything smacking of boredom. As far as I could determine, however, the Internet, including the County’s own web site, was a McHenry County Flag-Free Zone.

That changed last month when Cal Skinner of the McHenry County Blog hied himself to the official nexus of McHenry County governmental power, the inspirationally named McHenry County Administration Building, where said flag was flying, photographed the County’s official banner, and featured it in his blog entry, Message of the Day – A Flag.

The McHenry County Flag

As Cal notes, the county flag specimen flapping in the breeze in front of the McHenry County Administration Building is symbol-enhanced with “water, two trees, a leaping fish and the sun”³ in the upper right quadrant⁴ alone. Apparently making the same inference I did about the singularity ascribed to the McHenry Flag, Cal, approaching Heck of a Guy levels of snarkitude, goes on to comment that “I’m not certain if that is supposed to be unique to McHenry County.”

A Brief Consideration Of Being Unique To McHenry County

Let’s pause before continuing with the McHenryCountyBlog’s exposition to consider this idea of being “unique” among counties.

I will forgo any discussion of the philosophical, sociological, or psychological ramifications of the uniqueness of counties⁵ and, further, will stipulate that McHenry County is indeed unique in order to focus on the mechanics by which its County Flag (and its forthcoming new and improved County Seal) denotes those qualities that distinguish it from other counties.

As I observed in The Great Seal Of McHenry County Not Great Enough, McHenry County eschews the easy way out when it comes to identifiers on its emblems. Incorporating the name of the county, a seemingly straightforward means of rendering a seal or flag unique to that county, has been adjudged unacceptable in McHenry County. The current McHenry County Seal - which is, one recalls, to be replaced because it is not unique - has always displayed the legend, “Seal Of The County Of McHenry Illinois,” in large letters around the border of the embossment.

In any case, the text emblazoned on The McHenry County Flag is limited to “McHenry County,” which does not differentiate between McHenry County, Illinois and McHenry County, North Dakota.

Of course, what are the chances of McHenry County, North Dakota also being blessed with the fish, trees, waterways, and sun enjoyed by McHenry County, Illinois?

Well, it seems that, according to McHenry County, North Dakota, fishing and forestry are major occupational fields in that county, leading one to suspect that fish and trees may exist there. That site also displays a map with lots of blue areas, not unlike the cartographic symbols often used to represent rivers and lakes. And, there are a number of Web-based bulletin boards such as North Dakota Fishing Forum that discuss sport fishing in McHenry County, ND.

None of those sites, however, list “sunsets” or “the sun” among the assets of our North Dakota namesake, so we may have them there.

Dakota doppelgangers aside, the most fundamental perspective on the uniqueness of counties would seem to be simple arithmetic. According to Wikipedia, if one includes the “parishes” in Louisiana and “boroughs” in Alaska, there are 3,077 counties in the US.

Consequently, to establish McHenry County as unique, the McHenry County Flag only has to eliminate the other 3,076 counties on one criterion or another.

Put another way, “Are any of those 3,076 other counties also known, as is, apparently, McHenry County, Illinois, for sport fishing (I’m taking a risk that this is the intended connotation of the fish leaping from water), rivers and lakes, trees, and sunsets?”

Right off the bat, I think we can winnow out the counties within Death Valley and other American deserts which are bereft of trees and, I’m guessing, don’t offer much in the way of fishing. And those counties in areas of Oregon and Washington where nearly perpetual rainfall limits the amount of sunshine and obscures sunsets can be marked off the list. That couldn’t leave more than 2900 other counties, 3000 tops. Next, we can look at … -well, we could - or, maybe …

Let’s take another perspective. Let’s consider if there could be another county that is better known than McHenry for these qualities; if we find none, we’ll have at least presumptive evidence that those assets do make McHenry unique.

Hmmm. Come to think of it, I guess the county where my mother lives in southwest Missouri has more sunshine and photo opportunity level sunsets as well as more trees than McHenry County, Illinois. And, Table Rock Lake, which runs through her county, is highly rated for its bass fishing and hosts professional and amateur fishing competitions. It’s amazing but I may have found what must be the one county in America that is more well known for those qualities than is McHenry County, Illinois - if one doesn’t count McHenry County, North Dakota - or any of those other 3,000 or so counties not yet eliminated.

Ya know what? We should be getting back to Cal’s photo and description of the McHenry County Flag.

More About The McHenry County Flag

In the lower left section of the flag, a cow grazes on the barren white field of the the flag, oblivious to the immediate presence of what must be the world’s largest ear of corn, measuring more than twice the size of the cow.

I suppose an alternative interpretation is that McHenry County is known for its miniature Holsteins. In either case, I must get out more. In the ten years we’ve lived in the County of McHenry⁶ I have yet to view a mobile home sized ear of corn or a tiny bovine.

In fact, the most unusual cow I’ve seen locally was a larger than life size plastic cow proudly displayed in nearby Harvard, Illinois, [I'll pause here for readers to amuse themselves with their favorite Ivy League pun at the expense of our neighboring burg. OK, got it out of your system? Good.] which is shown below in a photo filched from The McHenry County Blog.

It’s confusing for a kid from the Ozarks.

Cal must have had his sarcasm booster shot the day of his flag post because he goes on to suggest that soybeans might be pictured on on the flag if depictions of that crop were easier to recognize.

Now, even though I decided at age five, coincident with my realization that cows had to be fed and milked every day, including Christmas, that life on our family farm was not for me, I know many farmers in these parts rotate corn and soybeans. So, I must, with all due respect, ask, Cal, did you look for soybeans on the other side of the flag?

In fact, Cal didn’t write much about some of the other symbols embedded in the flag. Happily, my undergrad degree in English Lit and my psychiatric training have enabled me to spot swarms of symbols, whether they exist or not.

For example, what’s with those “16 stars on [green]⁷ horizontal stripes?” I’m guessing that there is one star for each township in the County, but maybe it’s the age of consent in this jurisdiction. Or the number of people who can correctly identify the McHenry County Flag.

Does the white field of the flag represents peace? Purity? Innocence? Snow? Doesn’t a white flag signal surrender?

Are the green stripes a sign of eco-consciousness or is its symbolism more traditional, indicating agriculture, fertility. or the Muslim religion?

But the most significant faux pas may be the last sentence in his post, where Cal asks, “And, by the way, what’s with the ragged nature of this flag, found in front of the Administration Building?”

Cal, Cal, Cal, Cal, …
Why would county officials fly a beat up, dirty, tattered flag in front of their primary location? It just doesn’t make sense.

Obviously, the tatters are an intentional element of the flag’s design, a sort of Grunge style symbol. And there are so many things such an unraveling could represent. For example, the list of expectations for the new seal and, one assumes, the county flag includes “[will] reflect the character of the rapidly growing county where farms and new housing developments coexist.” That issue doesn’t appear to be covered elsewhere on the flag so perhaps the ragged edges along with the grime, stains, and the generally disreputable condition of the banner are somehow representative of that coexistence thing.

The Heck of a Guy McHenry County Flag Revision

But I’m sympathetic to Cal’s perspective so, despite the potential loss of symbolism, I’ve Photoshopped the tatters away, laundered the white field, including, I kid you not, a yellow stain just under the cow, and brightened up the emblems so they are easier to see. One may also note that in HeckofaGuyland, the skies are bluer and the flagpoles less corroded.

Hope Is A Tattered Flag

Even if the tatters on the McHenry County Flag are not intentionally symbolic, they have occasioned my recall of a wonderful Carl Sandberg poem called Hope is a Tattered Flag and provided an excuse for posting these lines, which have nothing to do, at least directly, with the rest this blog entry. This poem is, however, in the spirit of the season and should be considered a gift to all of us.

Hope Is A Tattered Flag
By Carl Sandberg

Hope is a tattered flag and a dream of time.
Hope is a heartspun word, the rainbow, the shadblow in white
The evening star inviolable over the coal mines,
The shimmer of northern lights across a bitter winter night,
The blue hills beyond the smoke of the steel works,
The birds who go on singing to their mates in peace, war, peace,
The ten-cent crocus bulb blooming in a used-car salesroom,
The horseshoe over the door, the luckpiece in the pocket,
The kiss and the comforting laugh and resolve—
Hope is an echo, hope ties itself yonder, yonder.
The spring grass showing itself where least expected,
The rolling fluff of white clouds on a changeable sky,
The broadcast of strings from Japan, bells from Moscow,
Of the voice of the prime minister of Sweden carried
Across the sea in behalf of a world family of nations
And children singing chorals of the Christ child
And Bach being broadcast from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
And tall skyscrapers practically empty of tenants
And the hands of strong men groping for handholds
And the Salvation Army singing God loves us….

Footnotes

1. The footnote I entered at the time the original post was written follows: My working hypothesis is that the notion that the seal should “reflect the character of the rapidly growing county where farms and new housing developments coexist” and the idea that the seal should “capture the county’s personality—a little bit country, a little bit suburbia” are equivalents rather than different criteria.↩
2. The footnote I entered at the time the original post was written follows: I wish to note for the record that, while I’m willing to do my best to follow these recommendations, I am finding it difficult to imagine any scene featuring a fish, an ear of corn, and a cow, all jumping above a waterway that doesn’t look silly, regardless of what kind of sunset is in the background.↩
3. There is a certain ambiguity re the sun symbol on the flag. Cal Skinner labels it only as “the sun” while one of the news stories calls it a “sunset.” The latter description seems somewhat ominous in the context of the anecdote told about Benjamen Franklin at the Constitutional Convention, as related at the Liberty Matters Journal:
   The Constitution was eventually adopted by the delegation, and as Franklin sat watching each member sign their name on the nation’s new Constitution, he remarked to one of his colleagues that during the debates he often noticed the painting on the back of the Convention Presidents chair, where George Washington presided. It was the painting of half a sun. Franklin told his colleague that he had wondered if the sun was rising or setting, and now he was certain it was rising.↩
4. In anticipation of the objections from fellow nitpickers, I will note that although the four sections of the McHenry County Flag are asymmetric and are thus unequal in size, they nonetheless meet criteria as “quadrants,” one definition of which is “Any of the four areas into which a plane is divided by two orthogonal coordinate axes”↩
5. Yes, this is a Christmas gift from DrHGuy to Heck of a Guy Readers. Enjoy↩
6. ”McHenry” is derived from “McHenry,” which in the language of county boosterism means, The Land Where Fish Leap From The Water Near The Two Trees At Sunset While Cows Gambol Near Huge Ears Of Corn↩
7. My recall is that it’s Cal who is color blind rather than me so I’m assuming those stripes are really green rather than red as Cal wrote↩