800 years old.
That's quite a feat. Not many man-made things survive for almost a millennium. Thanks to social media, I was notified that today, the national flag of Denmark turns eight-hundred years old. I didn't mean to write two blog posts about flags back-to-back, but it's not everyday a flag has an 800-year old birthday.
After reading the post about the flag's birthday, I did a little digging. I was looking for my Danish flag. When it came time for me to leave Denmark, I bought a flag. It wasn't a nice rectangular flag, but a long skinny one. It's called a Danish vimpel. They're cool, but it was too long to hang. I forgot that years ago I bought a regular-sized Danish flag, or Dannebrog. I hoped it was the same size as our American flag so I could fly it on our porch. Turns out, it was.
There's many things I remember about the Denmark of the mid-1980s. One was the country's love of their flag. They put it everywhere, like in every danish pastry in the bakery window. And when the national soccer team played--forget about it! That flag was everywhere! It was yet one more thing I loved about the country and the people. It even made me appreciate the American flag more when I returned home.
After I put up the Dannebrog flag, I took a few steps back, pulled out my phone and snapped a few pictures. It was definitely a different look for the house. For an instant, I could almost imagine our little A-frame home sitting on a quiet Danish street with cobblestone sidewalks and red mailboxes attached to each house. It was a lovely vision.
Happy birthday, Dannebrog! You don't look a day of 750.
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