A first timer at NAVA-35

by Daniel Broh-Kahn

So you may ask: Why am I writing this, and what the heck was a well bred Maryland boy doing in Norfolk? Well, Norfolk was the site of the 35th annual vexillological convention, and now that I am a full fledged member of the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) I decided to attend my first NAVA convention. I arrived NAVA's 35th convention around 3:00 pm on Friday, October 5th. I had volunteered to help man the registration booth, which actually manned itself quite nicely! The agenda said that there was a Board meeting of the old board starting at 4 pm, but Gus Tracchia who registered me was as friendly as could be, and was the first of dozens of people who made me feel welcome. Still, I was a little apprehensive: My badge had a black ribbon emblazoned upon it, clearly identifying me as a first timer. Would there be some sort of embarrassing initiation rituals involved? To find out, read on!

President Dave Martucci welcomes everyone to NAVA 35.

The bulk of the convention occurred in two rooms on the second floor of the quaint James Madison Hotel. One room was reserved for meetings and presentations, while the other room held tables for diners and exhibitors. All in all, it seems as if I spent equal amounts of time in each room. The banquet room was great! Flags and Flag stuff everywhere. Even though there was a small turnout, there are some real dedicated flag people out there, and I felt right at home. My first real event was my participation in the NAVA-35 annual meeting. Here all the officers of NAVA made their presentations into the minute of the meeting. Many of the reports were brief and to the point, but discussions of budgets and money had the affect (desired or not!) of raising people's interest and awareness. I'll leave it to others to summarize the reports, but in a nutshell, NAVA is spending more money than it takes in, and as the outgoing treasurer Peter Orenski pointed out, that cannot last forever. The last item of business was election of new NAVA officers.

The new NAVA Executive Board; (L to R) Ted Kaye, Treasurer; Dave Martucci, President; Andy Biles, 1st VP; Rich Monahan, Secretary; and Kevin Murray, 2nd VP.

Friday night had a buffet style dinner to welcome the NAVA membership to the convention. After grabbing an appetizer plate, I became engrossed in deep Vexillogical discussions, and when my stomach rumbled and I looked up, all the food was gone! You know what they say about he who hesitates. After dinner, there as an auction of some neat Vexillogical stuff, including the Iranian flag that flew in the Kennedy Center but was taken down during the hostage crisis, as well as some real esoteric stuff too. Several people presented items from their respective collections.

Nick Artimovich shows Dave Martucci's Norwegian Post Flag, found in a bale of signal flags, while Carita Culmer observes.

On Saturday morning, many of the attendees chose to take a guided tour of the triad of nearby historical Virginia sites, Yorktown, Williamsburg and Jamestown. No one seemed to let a little rain deter him or her from this excellent look at our nation's history. First there was Jamestown, the first English settlement in the New World. Then there was Williamsburg, the colonial capital of Virginia, and walking through there is like stepping back over 200 years. And lastly, there was Yorktown, with the highlights, summary, and of course, the final battle of the US Revolutionary War. Interestingly enough, our tour did them in reverse order!

Peter Orenski horses around with our esteemed tour guide and Glenn Compton at Yorktown.

The first stop on the tour was Yorktown, where the NAVA membership learned about French and American efforts to triumph in the American Revolution. At Yorktown, I personally learned that critical to the success of General Washington on land was the French victory at sea in keeping the English from reinforcing. Although the naval battle of the capes was tactically a draw, it must be considered a decisive strategic victory with its impact! I looked everywhere for Mel Gibson, but he was nowhere to be seen.

The entrance to the Yorktown Visitor's Center is lined with the State Flags of the USA.

Inside the Visitor's Center are many flag-like hangings.

The rank and file membership had a chuckle as the "NAVA Flag Police" wrote up citations all over Yorktown. The tourist site signs show not only the French Tricolor (Post French Revolution/Napoleonic era) but also the Union Flag, which came into use in 1801. It is my understanding that the NAVA Flag Police came into being in my very own Baltimore, issuing citations to the Fort McHenry Museum for printing inexact replicas of the "Star Spangled Banner." In the original Star Spangled Banner, the stars point "east" and "west" not "north" as our current flag does. We cannot be too careful around the Flag Police!

The original color of an Ansbach-Bayreuth Regiment captured at Yorktown.

After the Yorktown visitor center, our bus took us by the Yorktown Victory monument and past other sites on the way to Williamsburg. After searching in vain for a coffee break, our group debauched in the rain near the old state capitol at Williamsburg.

NAVA members observe the Colonial Capitol at Williamsburg.

The British Arms are emblazoned on the steeple of the Capitol.

The Continental Colors fly from the top of the steeple.

An hour later, soaked to the skin, the intrepid Vexillologists broke up for lunch on the other end of the colonial town. We saw many of the sites of the town, walking on both sides of the street of the main drag, Duke of Gloucester Street. Fortunately, they don't allow cars!

A unit of Revolutionary War soldiers drill in the rain.

After lunch at various establishments, we boarded our bus-sauna and after waiting impatiently for the last two lost vexillogolists, the group headed to our third destination, Jamestown.

Looking down the Main Street inside Jamestown.

At Jamestown they have replicas of the three ships that the initial Virginia Company Settlers came over on from England. One of them (The Constant? The Discovery? I cannot remember!) had a crew of 7 and carried 13 passengers. The passengers stayed mostly below deck, with no natural light or ventilation. The ship was about 25 feet long, smaller than most modern yachts.

A striped English Ensign typical of the Elizabethan era.

And yet, these settlers stayed on this tiny ship there for 4 months! Most of us were staggered that a ship that small could even make it across the ocean, let alone carry passengers and cargo as it did. I did notice a lot of the attendees huddled around the cooking fires at colonial Fort attempting to dry their soaked clothing!

A colonist at Jamestown shows the English St. George's Flag.

Reproduction of the Arms of Queen Elizabeth I at the Jamestown Visitor's Center.

Unusual three bowl pipe unearthed at Jamestown.

A replica of the bark cape of Powhaten.

Does Peter Orenski have a skeleton in his closet? This portrait of an early settler at Jamestown sure does bear an uncanny resemblance!

After our trip to the three great historical sites in southeast Virginia, many of the group took a well-deserved rest and freshened up for dinner. I never saw so many patriotic clothes at dinner, including "Uncle Sam" himself, portrayed by Glenn E. Compton. The group had a fancy dinner (surf AND turf!) and recent arrival Kim won the door prize, a watch with flags of the US and Malawi emblazoned the face. All the first timers at a NAVA convention were introduced and presented with an attractive NAVA 35 flag as a souvenir of their trip.

Everyone wore their best to the banquet! (L to R) Dick Clark, Harry Oswald and Glenn Compton.

After dinner, there was a lecture and slide show on flag conservation and restoration at the Museum of the Confederacy. The stories behind some of the flags were interesting, and the details included descriptions of pulling threads from some of the flags! Still, flag preservation is critical to NAVA's mission, and a lot of interesting points were made. NAVA President David Martucci and others contributed to the Flag Conservation Program on the spot, and encouraged others to do the same.

Keynote speaker Rebecca Rose of the Museum of the Confederacy says this conserved color is her favorite of the collection.

Sunday after a buffet breakfast, it was back to the meeting room for conference presentations and speakers. Gus Tracchia gave a Driver Award winning talk about the Flags and Banners of King Arthur, while Ted Kaye addressed the impact of the first ever NAVA cyberspace flag survey. Andrew Bile did an admirable job presenting John Schmale's speech about 5 Illinois Regimental Civil War Flags. After a brief break, there was a debate about the future of vexillology. The panel discussion, hosted by John Purcell, featured inputs by luminaries Whitney Smith and Charles "Kin" Spain.

After lunch, Daniel Broh-Kahn gave a presentation about Flags and Games, and discussed the design of his flag card game, VEX. Next there was another excellent slide show and presentation by Truman Pope about Flags in Combat in World War II, and then the final presentation by Martin Frances from California who has basically dedicated his life to the History of Old Glory. What more could any Vexillologist want?

I was initially hesitant about all these speeches and presentations, and was concerned that I would not be interested. I needn't have worried, because all of the presentations were informative, and at times, quite lively. I was really impressed that at least five different media were used to present: In technology order, we had overheads from a projector, slides, videotapes, DVDs, and a computer! Once all the formal presentations were complete, Kevin Murray presented information about NAVA 36 in Denver Colorado (Over Labor Day weekend, 2002) and the membership was quick to point out that the Denver flag even looks like a NAVA convention flag! Finally, the formal part of the convention was over, and the new board met to discuss business items.

For me, part of the excitement was the displays that were set up. It seemed as if Hank Gardner had waited all his life to put his flag collection on display. He had about ten tables worth of flag related stuff! Large flags from the original Soviet Republics, lots of philately items, including special stamps issued by Kuwait after their liberation, and a flag card game from the 19th Century! Hank displayed flag shirts, ties, posters, puzzles, medals, cigarette cards, books, patches, everything! He also had a large collection of 4" by 6" flags, including the flags of the United Nations, flags of the 50 states, flags of the Japanese Prefectures, and even a bunch of out of date flags. Plus the traditional Civil War flag stuff. The only problem was that he wasn't selling anything!

Fortunately, that problem was mitigated at some of the other displays. Several NAVA members, including Glenn Compton, Bernie Couture, Martin Francis, Dave Martucci and Nicholas Artimovich were selling lots of stuff, like books, posters, games and, of course, flags. I personally saw two flag games, and bought them both, as well as a bunch of posters, but what really depleted my bank account was a Flag Recognition Handbook from 1899 produced by the US Navy. I just had to have that, plus the 1938 version as well. My own booth was supposed to have my VEX card game available, but, unfortunately, it was never delivered to the hotel as promised! Oh, well. At least I generated interest in some potential future customers.

One unmanned exhibit that did catch my attention was for Nauticus, the National Maritime Center and Hampton Roads Maritime Museum, set up by Marc Nucup. As I was leaving the hotel at the end of the festivities, driving around downtown Norfolk looking for a gas station, and just saw it! I turned; drive a little closer, and signs everywhere pointing towards the USS Wisconsin. So I had to park, and literally ran to the entrance (It was after 4 on Sunday, and I figured they'd close at 5, which they did. As I boarded the Wisconsin, I was overwhelmed. It was staggering. The turrets, which are the first thing you see as you come aboard, were as big as houses. The insides of the ship are sealed up (mothballed) but you can go almost anywhere on the upper decks, right next to the turrets (16" and 5") and also next to the Harpoon and Tomahawk launchers. Gone, of course, are the zillions of anti-aircraft batteries, which was what the Iowa Class ships were primarily used for in the waning years of WWII. But for me it was interesting to see, since the same time I was at the NAVA convention, the U.S. had initiated retaliatory strikes on Afghanistan.

So that's a first timer's report at NAVA-35. You can bet I'll do everything in my power to get to NAVA-36, and I look forward to the next batch of newcomers there! See you in Denver!