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caption, page 1:
Tim Stabile of Narragansett Flags put the new pole into place. More photos on page 4. Expanded photo array Wed. night on FB: Putnam Town Crier & Northeast Ledger. Linda Lemmon photo.
captions, page 4:
Clockwise from top left:
Rob Challinor, left, and Mayor Seney wait to help peel the paper off the pole.
Sand went into the pipe around the pole to stabilize it.
Retainer ring and counterweight help keep the bottom of the flag down.
Alan Joslin, left, and Challinor unfurl the flag.
Tools of the trade
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — The old one was more than 100 years old and “We’ll all be dead and gone” by the time the new flagpole at the Grove Street Monument is done for.
Rob Challinor, chairman of the Veterans Advisory Committee, said as near as they can figure the old flagpole was put in in 1912 and surprisingly, it wasn’t actually a “pole.” It was a few sewer pipes melded together.
The paint peeled; anytime anything had to be done, haul out a ladder. Veterans and town officials have been working on the replacement for maybe 10 years.
May 4 Tim Stabile of Narragansett Flags installed a bright shiny anodized aluminum 25-foot flagpole that doesn’t require a ladder. The cable and mechanism is in a locking box on the side the pole. It includes a solar light that will illuminate the 4-foot by 6-foot flag. It also has a “truck,” the spinning part of the flagpole that holds the rope. There is also a retaining ring and counterweight that holds down the bottom of the flag.
Some $5,300 was raised last fall and the pole took only about $4,800 so the balance will be transferred to the next veterans’ project, Veterans Park at the corner of Bridge and Church streets.
Challinor and Mayor Barney Seney, along with Alan Joslin, — all veterans — got a quick lesson on using the internal mechanism for flag raising and lowering.
The fact that the ground didn’t freeze this winter slowed the installation down a bit. Stabile said 14 bags of concrete went into a deep hole first, around a pipe that would be the home for the pole. After the pole was raised, Stabile packed sand into the pipe hole, all around the pole. It will harden a bit, naturally and stabilize the pole. When it’s time to replace the pole, it means just sand removal, not taking a jackhammer to concrete.
Challinor and Seney were thrilled, both saying “no more ladders. No more chipping paint.”
Challinor said when the reconstruction of the sidewalks on Grove Street is finished, they will come back in, level it out a bit and put in plantings and metal benches.
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