MoCo County: Drawn and Quartered
The saving grace of Bethesda at 7:30am.
A couple weeks ago I spent all day around Wheaton, and even after returning to The District for a respite from that suburb of diversity, ended up back in Wheaton that night. Never before had I realized how prominent the Montgomery County Flag is there. I didn't take any pictures then, but when I emerged from the metro station in Bethesda early this morning for my dentist appointment, greeted once more by the MoCo flag, I felt like it must be my destiny to write about it.
I like it for its childish video-game-i-ness. The bold colors and diagonal matches, in addition to the silly signets (or are those a different kind of fancy ring?) makes me think of Super Mario or something.
The fleurs de lyseses bother me. In my opinion, flags that use the fleur de lys that aren't very saliently french are misusing the fleur de lys. According to the ever-knowledgeable CRW Flags website (yes, I am quoting here a flag retailer, and it is not the first time, because CRW Flags has a lot of useful information, all on one ultra-crappy html page SO SUE ME) the fleurs de lys's are for the french branch of the Montgomery family. DO BETTER. Lots of people have some french in them, that doesn't mean they all go around proclaiming their innate love of escargot. Neither should you signify your presence by appropriating a symbol that actually means something to someone. So: B- for the fancy rings, F for the fleurs.
Even more outrageous is that the colors on the flag are stipulated to be the red and blue that are found on the American flag, and the gold on the Maryland flag. This smacks of keeping the baby AND the bathwater (??? thanks Pedro). JUST BECAUSE A FLAG SHOULD BE SYMBOLIC DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU CAN COME UP WITH GOOD SYMBOLISM FOR EVERYTHING. This is the central tenet of good flag design. YOU JUST MADE THAT SYMBOLISM UP!!!!! AND WE ALL KNOW IT!
Finally, you may have noticed I neglected to mention something. The way this flag is divided into 4, it sort of looks like one of those giant puzzle mats that kindergardeners hang out on?
This is reported by CRW the following way:
The flag will be quartered by a crenelated line, separating the top two quarters from the two bottom quarters, and a straight vertical line, separating the left two quarters from the two right quarters.
Crenelated, huh? I call this 'castle lines', cause of the creative artist talents we are all familiar with from our crayon days:
In conclusion, there are two ways in which MoCo County's crenellation party reminds me of 6-year-olds. And surprisingly, not a mom sandwich in sight.
But maybe to appreciate the beauty of the MoCo flag, we should travel over to Prince George's County, where DK and I spend our days. How come we never see a PG County flag flying proudly? I'll tell you why. Cause it looks like this:
Half-ass, malnourished England flag wannabe. Who let this happen? Why does the seal look like a nicorette patch that someone colored in? Oh PG County, you cannot catch a break. No wonder affluent MoCo is so smug; you can't even fight back with a flag you're proud to fly!
