Flying High

Posted On February 17, 2007

My Gator flag had humble beginnings.

I moved into an different apartment for my last semester of college. Such a temporary situation did not warrant my usual homey decorating. I had the bare necessities and a few things to keep the gigantic room from looking so plain. On one mid-day trip to Walmart I found a 3×5 foot Gator flag which seemed to be a good solution for my vast expanse of bare walls.

After graduation the flag came down and was packed up along with the rest of my posessions where it stayed boxed for many months. It made the trip home and then it made the trip to New Jersey and back home again a year later. It wasn’t until we moved into our current home that the flag found its way out into the light of day once again. It hung on a wall in our garage, greeting me with orange and blue every day when I returned home from work.

But then a request came from my world traveling husband: Please send the flag. And so I packed it up, along with a few other important things that are lacking in that particular part of the world namely Quaker Oatmeal. Ten days later my dear Gator flag had traveled the 10,000 miles to the middle east where it was immediately hung in the name of troop morale.

Yet the flag did not know that it had a job to do. The flag had to wave alongside the stars and stripes in the name of the Gator Nation.

And so it did.

On Saturday December 2, 2006, as the Gators were beating Arkansas for the SEC title, my Gator flag flew in their honor over Afghanistan.

Then, on Monday January 8, 2007, as the Gators went down in history as the only school to hold titles in both Football and Basketball at the same time, my flag flew over Iraq.

My Gator flag is now world traveled, too. And while it doesn’t stand for the same as the red white and blue it waves proudly at home once again.