O say can you spree?

In rural Maine, attention flags when Bush says buy more stuff

by Max Alexander

John Waters didn’t bother saying hello. He just got on the phone and started yelling. I needed a quote from the director about the ’50s movie hunk Troy Donahue, who had just died. I was writing his obit for the Big National Magazine, and Waters had directed Donahue in the 1990 teen-pic sendup Cry-Baby. But apparently the mustachioed filmmaker had a “history” with the magazine, which meant he hated it, which meant I had to listen to his tirade before we could get to the sound-bite. “Every time I do your magazine, they don’t print it or they edit it and change what I say!” he shouted. “I’ve had very bad experiences. This is my last shot with them; if they do it again I’m never talking to them. If they want answers that are normal, they shouldn’t call me!”

He had a point. Though, when you live in rural Maine, a guy who makes movies watched by millions of Americans seems, well, pretty normal. I mean, compare that to people whose only form of winter heat is chopping down trees on their own land. Or guys who carry tampons in their jacket pockets to stop the bleeding from chainsaw cuts when they’re deep in the woods. People in my town don’t live anything close to normal American 21st-century lives. The nearest place to see a John Waters movie is 25 miles away.

Which helps explain why folks in my neck of the woods are having a hard time with President Bush’s call for patriotic spending to teach those terrorists a thing or two about consumer confidence. Nevermind his bizarre exhortation that we all pack up the kids, right now, this week, and fly to Disney World. (Doesn’t he know school is back in session? Isn’t he “the education president,” or was that some other jaw-flapper? I get them confused.) To rural Mainers, it seems downright un-American to spend money on anything. When folks in my town heard that a teaspoonful of anthrax could wipe out the whole state, they appreciated the frugality.

So when locals needed to stock up on American flags, they didn’t drive to Wal-Mart in Rockland. They just trotted over to Dave Martucci’s house. Dave is our local flag expert. In fact, he’s the president of the North American Vexillological Society, whose 460-odd members dedicate their lives to the study of flags. Dave, 49, works as a computer consultant to small businesses, and he is also a professional appraiser of antique flags through his website, www.vexman.net.

When I dropped by Dave’s farmhouse last week, he was sold out of current American flags and making plans to travel to Philadelphia for an appearance on the History Channel. He’d already done about 25 interviews since the terrorist attacks. The tall flagpole in his front yard was flying two huge banners: a 13-starred American flag and the so-called Gadsden flag — the famous 1776 image of a snake with the motto “Don’t Tread On Me.”

You wouldn’t want to tread on Dave — a stout, bearded, Jerry Garcia type who laughs easily but also gets worked up over Things That Matter. He took the reins of the North American Vexillological Society in 1998, after a controversy over inclusion. “Basically some of the group’s leaders felt that North America meant white guys in the US and Canada,” he says. “I didn’t agree with that, so I got involved.”

A New Jersey native, Dave got hooked on flags as a freshman in high school, when he wrote a report on the flag of Wales (white and green with a dragon) for English class. “There’s an old saying that flags are the shorthand of history,” he says. “You can often tell the whole story of a country in its flag.”

Dave arrived in Maine from Boston, where he had driven a taxi. “One night a guy put a gun upside my head and said ‘Leave the money, get out, start walking, and don’t look back,’ “ says Dave. “So I did what he said. Then the cab company sued me for loss of their vehicle. I fought them for two years. When we finally got in front of a judge, he said ‘Are you kidding?’ and threw out their suit. By then I’d had my apartment ripped off twice and two cars stolen.”

It was 1974. He moved to Maine.

The current flag mania is unprecedented in American history — no such run on Old Glory followed Pearl Harbor or any other national tragedy — and Dave attributes it to the nature of the devastation. “These were attacks on powerful American symbols,” he says, “so we turn to a symbol in response.”

Dave Martucci has no plans to visit Disney World, and from the looks of his well-used kitchen woodstove, his spending patterns are not likely to boost many stocks on the Big Board. Sorry, George. Dave’s as patriotic as any American — a flag-waving radical with a deep respect for history, and the wisdom to be happy with what he has. If you want normal, flag down someone else.

Max Alexander can be reached at malex@midcoast.com.