deliriouslove1970. The life & times of Gary and Denise Flanders. (Free and worth every penny. If you would like to compliment the editor, send to garytheflan@deliriouslove1970.com. If you would like to complain, call your mother.)

The flag that has become known as ‘The Star Spangled Banner’. It is most likely close to the original flag that Betsy Ross finally completed. Our flag has been changed 27 times since its first ideation. It has been the official flag for 61 years. *It was designed by a musician who wrote satirical songs,…

The Royal Banner of Scotland. Also called the Red Rampant Lion Flag. It represents the Royal (Monarchy) Family of Scotland. Scotland is a country within the United Kingdom, covering the northern third of Great Britain. It is a difficult concept for us in the US to think about a country within a country. The name…

The State of Illinois. A midwestern state, one of the many states we have lived in. The word Illinois most likely was borrowed from the Ojibwe language by French Missionaries. The word irenwe-wa is something they heard the Indigenous people say, the French added their transliterative ‘ois’ and came up with Illinois. (The Ojibwe word…

The Republic of Kiribati, an independent island nation composed of islands, atolls and coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean. Kiribati is another place where despite there being humans there for thousands of years, once England found it to be of strategic importance it well…took it. It was a good port to stop at while in…

Malaysia. A Federal Constitutional Monarchy in Southeast Asia. Another country colonized first by Portugal, then The Dutch and finally ‘stolen’ by Great Britain. After it gained it’s independence from the English in 1957, it reorganized as The Federation of Malay. The name “Malaysia” is a combination of the word “Malays” and the Latin-Greek suffix “-ia“/”-ία“which…

NOAA: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The American scientific agency that is a part of the Department of Commerce. It was formed in October of 1970 to improve the stewardship of the environment. NOAA has five fundamental activities: One of NOAA’s most prominent services is The National Weather Service. They are the ones with…

New York (City) Police Department. NYPD is the largest and one of the oldest municipal police departments in the United States, with approximately 36,000 officers and 19,000 civilian employees. The NYPD was established in 1845, and today, is responsible for policing an 8.5-million-person city, by performing a wide variety of public safety, law enforcement, traffic…

True South Antarctica. The southern most continent in the world. It contains the South Pole. It is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. It is the fifth largest continent. It has a population of approximately 5,000 in the summer and maybe 1,000 in the winter. 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice. The ice is 1.2…