A School in Distress?

[John_B]

I was in this small town having a meal at the local cafe and I looked across the street and saw this.

A School in Distress?
http://johnbdigital.com/misc/school_distress.jpg
click for specs (http://johnbdigital.com/misc/school_distress.htm)

I learned it was meant as a distress signal when the American flag was upside down. However in this case I believe it was just an innocent error. :lol:

[CincyShooter]

I didn't even notice it was upside down until I read that, Shows how Proud I am huh? lol

[John_B]

CincyShooter,
Many at the cafe we were at didn't notice it and I didn't notice it at first either :) In fact the school didn't notice it .
So your not alone :lol:

[CincyShooter]

whew Now I can move back from Canada!

[Yiskah]

The hand on the door makes it seem even more so!

[John_B]

Yiskah,
It does kind of look like a hand on a door.
However it is the crosswalk sign.
Here is 100% crop here to show a bit more :)


The Sign
http://johnbdigital.com/misc/school_distress2.jpg

[John_B]

Here is a 100% crop of the flag

http://johnbdigital.com/misc/school_distress1.jpg

[BottomBracket]

Sharp eye. Perhaps the school was protesting something? Displaying the flag this way is serious business, they should be more aware of it next time. Good capture!

[Yiskah]

Whoops! Thanks for the explanation, John:)

[CincyShooter]

pssst....I was looking at the same thing as you Yiskah (but don't tell anyone)

[kuanyu]

Many many many years ago My high school flag was raised upside down by mistake, the school was suronded by police cars with-in the hour.

[SBCmetroguy]

Looks to me like the prank of whatever school kid got to raise the flag that morning. I'm sure he thought it was quite funny, but he wouldn't think so if the police surrounded his school thinking something was awry.

A coworker of mine and myself were coming back to the office from lunch one day, and as we passed a neighborhood nursing home we noticed their flag was flying upside down like this. We immediately called 411 on the cell phone and got through to the nursing home. When we asked if everything was okay, that we were calling about the flag, the woman started laughing... she thought the upside down flag was hilarious. We informed her that the upside down flag is reserved as a distress symbol ONLY and that her flag was to be flipped right side-up immediately. She got mad and hung up the phone on us, but when we passed by there that evening the flag had been corrected.

[Mike-DT6]

Nice shot. If that's a genuine mistake, then the person who did that needs educating.

I see it frequently with the Union Flag over here, but a lot of people seem oblivious to it. A tragic sign of the times maybe.

Mike

:-)

[John_B]

BottomBracket,
Thanks :)
I ran into someone that came from the school that day (looked like a teacher) after the flag was taken down. So I asked him about why it was done, he replied with something like "silly kids"

Yiskah,
Yea crops come in real handy :)

kuanyu,
No one seemed to notice it at this school, except me :)

SBCmetroguy,
Thats what I thought as well, but then thought about it again and even though it could be a prank I would lean toward an innocent error (trying to stay positive :lol: ).
Sorry to hear about your story :( Here you go out of your way to help and its returned with a cranky hang up. Lets hope they don't make similar errors on the patients.

Mike-DT6,
Thanks, yea I hope the kid learned from the error :)

Thanks all, glad you enjoyed the photo and I hope you all had a happy holiday :)