Flag Day is hardly complete without a trip through Brooklyn, Iowa’s self-proclaimed Community of Flags.
The small town in east-central Iowa’s Poweshiek County has lined its main street with flapping flags from dozens of countries around the world, with a special flag court a block away.
Yvonne Price, one of Brooklyn’s flag curators, says there are 60 poles up there with all of the state flags along with several other flags, like for the United Nations, and at the end of the drive is the "honor guard" which features all of the flags from the various branches of the U.S. military.
She says when the statewide bicycle ride RAGBRAI went through Brooklyn about 15 years ago, they decided to deck their streets with colorful flags and everyone liked the look of it so much, they made it a permanent fixture.
Price says all of the flags at the pole site were sold within a month to people who wanted to buy them in memory of someone.
Helga Rhinehart, another one of Brooklyn’s flag caretakers, volunteers in the town’s flag store. Rhinehart says all of the flags, flag poles and flag-related items that are sold in the store go to replace the hundreds of flags — like the big American flag, which she says is quite expensive. It measures 38 by 20 feet.
Rhinehart says nothing unusual is being planned for Flag Day this year, but then she says, every day is Flag Day there.
Brooklyn is just north of Interstate 80, some 45 miles from Iowa City, 60 miles from Waterloo-Cedar Falls, 65 miles from Des Moines and 30 miles from the Amana Colonies.