I Salute You, & You

Wednesday, 3 February 2016, 5:30 pm
Opinion: Steve Bolton

I only realized how bad things had become when I snapped out of my reverie and found myself standing in the herbaceous border section at the garden centre saluting a SALE flag.

It's red background seemed to say 'buy herbaceous borders plants and do it now'! While the big white letters seemed steadfast and solid, their message clear, even as the flag waved in the wind.

It'd been like this for months. I'd see a flag and snap to attention thinking 'this could be the one'.

Driving home across the harbour bridge with my trailer full of hebes, I took both hands off the wheel and saluting both flags simultaneously; tipping my head back and watching them through the sun roof as I passed underneath.

It felt clumsy and awkward but seemed the best way to show respect without showing any bias one way or the other.

Both looked majestic in their own way. Like flags from a modern, confident young country. A country with pecs and a nipple ring. A country that was growing up and going places. Both in their own way were magnificent.

I put my hands back on the wheel as I coasted down the bridge toward the Shelly Beach Road off ramp.

Back home I got out my pastels and continued working on my own flag idea. It was late. I'd missed the deadline but my idea was so strong, so novel, I was sure it would be accepted and then go on to win.

I'd started with something failry traditional, red stars on a dark blue background, but in a flash of inspiration I'd decided to add four and a half million stars to my flag. Roughly one for every person in the country with a few spares thrown in for future generations.

To me the flag was all about inclusiveness. But it takes a long time to draw four and a half million stars with a pastel and every day the flag got bigger and bigger.

It was made up of around one hundred sheets of A2 paper sellotaped together and I'd estimated that I'd need another one hundred sheets to finish off the job properly.

And as it grew, I began to realise there'd be other problems too.

The bridge, and most of the municipal building that the new flag would fly from, were too small and their flag poles were hoplessly inadequate.

In the evenings I spent my time designing a new, larger harbour bridge, better suited to the new flag, as well as sketching out a few rough ideas for new municipal buildings.

And as I worked, I imagined my new flag and how it would look. It would be by far the biggest flag in the world.

I pictured it in front of the UN in New York, on it's own extra large flag pole, blocking out the sun and the Manhattan skyline.

I visualised it on top of the Beehive, all eighty something metres of it waving in the Wellington wind and as I coloured in another star I knew that this new flag would be truly inspirational.

It would trump all the other flags, swamping entire teams at Olympics opening ceremonies. Athletes would drape themselves with it. Dragging it around the track behind them in exhausting, energy zapping laps of victory and it would prove that New Zealand was a force to be reckoned with not just on the rugby field but on the sewing machine as well.

I worked late that night, colouring in stars and imaginging my flag on blocks of butter, calendars and underpants.

The next morning I planted my hebes in a series on concentric circles around the spot in the garden where my new flagpole would be going. I raked the crushed shells on the path and went inside to check my emails.

There was a message from my builder saying that despite this being the biggest flagpole he'd ever built, and the first one ever with and electric winch, everything was going smoothly and the flagpole would be delivered and installed before Christmas. Now all I had to do was draw another two and a half million stars.

I made a strong cup of tea and got down to work.

By mid-January the pole was in and I only had another half million stars to go. My new bridge and building designs were ready too, so I put them in a large brown envelope and walked up the street to the Post Office.

I stood at the counter as the teller weighed my package and added the appropriate stamp. It was a stamp of the flag.

A feeling came over me as I took my change. A kind of welling up.

I felt embarrassed with the queue of strangers behind me but I couldn't help myself. I straightened my back, clenched my buttocks and gave my parcel a stiff salute as the teller threw it into the bag.

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