I would not call GNV’s official city logo a “choo-choo train.
That seems to me rather churlish shorthand intended to denigrate a symbol that, like it or not, has withstood the test of time. So far.
Nobody asked me, but I might have called it GNV’s “soul train.”
Not only because it sounds cooler – and, in a roundabout way, pays tribute to the city’s rich music history.
No, because, for its time, the locomotive was the killer app that installed heart and soul in a small farm town that pretty much had nothing else going for it.
Call it GNV’s original Raison d’État.
And does anybody believe that UF would have come here if the railroads hadn’t already put GNV on the map?
But never mind all that. I come not to either praise nor bury the City’s official choo-choo/soul train logo.
No, I wanna talk about flags. A City of GNV flag to be precise.
I’m no fan of the concept.
For the same reason that I stopped pledging my allegiance to red, white and blue cloth a long time ago.
Because in my decidedly jaded opinion, flags at any level have become less about building unity, identity and a sense of shared purpose than they are tribal symbols that, more often than, not drive us apart.
(Hey, remember that time we briefly flew a United Nations flag over City Hall and pre-MAGA America went nuts?)
I fly a Gator flag. That guy down the street has a Seminole on his cloth.
And what’s with all of those confederate battle flags that keep popping up along the interstate and in pickup beds? A celebration of heritage? Or an in-your-face, suck-it you libtards taunt?
And does anybody doubt that there are legions of True Patriots out there who would happily pummel me for refusing to say “I pledge allegiance…”?
Not to make too much of what is a relatively minor local issue. Listen, I’m sure we can all have a lot of fun suggesting the Perfect GNV Flag.
A marijuana leaf perhaps?
A likeness of Tom Petty over the pledge “We won’t back down.”
Hell, if it were up to me I might suggest putting young Scott Camil and his seven would-be martyrs on our flag.
Because in my opinion, the day a GNV jury told Richard Nixon to pack sand and freed the Gainesville 8, represented the high-point of city civic virtue.
You can run all the contests you like, and only one result is certain.
Some of us are gonna love it. And some of us are gonna hate it.
That is, unless the end result is so innocuous, so unoffensive, that nobody could possible object.
In which case, what was the point?
I dunno, maybe the fact that other cities have flags and we don’t just shows how, um, behind the times we are.
Call it flag envy.
But I doubt that an official GNV flag – or for that matter, a more modern logo – is gonna matter two puffs in a hurricane when you come right down to it.
Hey, remember our official GNV slogan: “Every Path Starts With Passion?”
Yeah, me neither.
Talk about a flash in the GNV pan.
