Small and Mighty

The American Flag. What does it symbolize, what does it mean?

I ended up going away for mothers’ day this weekend, up to Kohler, Wisconsin, which was convenient because if there is only one thing I’ll ever remember about Wisconsin-ites it’s that they love big American Flags. Really big American Flags. I’ve made the drive to Kohler about three times a year since I was like five, and we probably pass five huge American flags on the way there. Actually now it’s only four since the insurance company headquarters we pass took theirs down (which is interesting within itself).

However, the picture I took was not of one of those flags. It was of a much smaller flag. Actually, it isn’t a flag at all; it’s a painting of a flag. This painted flag, as you can see, is placed atop a silo. An interesting place for a flag. Or is it? The first thing I wondered was why there? Is there anything particularly American about silos? Well, yes there is. We’re one of the bread baskets of the world. But then I thought about how the farmer who owned said silo had to make the conscious decision to have that flag on top of his silo. Maybe he believes he is doing something particularly patriotic. Making food for Americans and foreigners alike. There is something strangely idyllic about an honest farmer, who lives off modest means and owes everything to the land. This is the way most American’s through history have lived, but actually, it’s kind of dying. American’s are no longer majority farmers. And with the industrialization of farming, both crop and livestock, the lifestyle of the American farmer is drastically different than it once was.

So was does this flag on this silo say? That this is America? These are its roots, its core, and its true citizen? This flag struck me, because it seems to, despite its size, demand attention. Close to the highway and high in the air, in a perpetual state of motion, it titles its farm “American”. But is it American? Is the rural America still the American heart, as this silo, and a surprisingly large amount of Wisconsin silos claim?

Or is farming a dying art, and with it, a dying form of patriotism?