Their Devotion Is Flagging, Their Presentation Flappable

Eugene Derrickson of Lake Forest was just 20 years old when he left for the Pacific as a World War II Marine fighter pilot. His father gave him a 48-star American flag to take with him. Big one, too, measuring 5 feet by 8 feet.

“Wherever I went, World War II, the Korean War, that flag went with me,” Derrickson said.

As a good-luck piece, it wasn’t bad. Derrickson survived a total of 87 enemy bullet holes, which marred the bomber planes he flew.

Later Derrickson got a 49-star flag, and when he retired from the Marine Corps in 1964, he wanted to fly the modern 50-star flag. He bought the Washington, D.C., flag too, because he was born and raised there. His wife, Sarah, was from Florida, so he got that flag. And their two children were born in North Carolina, another state flag he had to have. And the Marine Corps flag was a must.

“It just kind of grew from there,” he said.

Derrickson now has more than 60 flags, all of them representing some part of America’s history. He and Sarah have become flag experts.

On Sunday, Derrickson will lecture about their flags at a meeting of the Saddleback Historical Society. I can tell you from my own preview, those people are in for a treat.

The Derrickson flag collection dates back to the Vikings in the year 1000. Some facts of interest I never knew myself:

* There were actually four Confederate flags. The changes began when leaders decided the first one looked too much like the American flag.

* There’s a British Union Jack in the Hawaii flag. That’s because in 1791, a British explorer presented Hawaiian King Kamehameha with a British flag. The king loved it and incorporated the Union Jack in the new Hawaiian flag.

* Remember the Revolutionary flag, “Don’t Tread on Me”? Wrong. It was Dont. There was never an apostrophe.

* The white stripes in the first American flag were George Washington’s idea. They represented separation from the mother country.

A huge flag pole in the Derricksons’ frontyard almost always flies two flags. One is the flag of whatever occasion, the other is usually the California flag.

By the way, of all the Derricksons’ beautiful flags, one is not a replica. They proudly showed me that original flag his father had sent with him into battle, the one that got him through two wars.

If you’d like the Derricksons for a flag show at a group meeting, you can reach them at (714) 770-1365.

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Off-Site Fun: You never see the Disneyland band leave Disneyland--except to spend time entertaining schoolchildren.

The amusement park’s official band is in the midst of an 11-concert series for nearly 40,000 second-graders on behalf of the Philharmonic Society of Orange County.

Thursday morning I was delighted to watch the youngsters gathered at the gymnasium at Marina High School to enjoy the band’s pieces, such as “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Can Can for Band.” Most of the youngsters already knew the words to “It’s a Small World.”

The Philharmonic Society is essentially a whole host of volunteers who raise money to bring good music to the county and promote music education in our schools. It took 35 volunteers just to set up for the Thursday band concert.

I asked two of them, Betty Chandler and her husband, Stan, of Huntington Beach, what they get out of it. They’ve been volunteering for 10 years now.

“It’s great fun,” Betty Chandler said. “And look at these kids. They’re loving it.”

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Wrap-Up: One of the pleasures of growing up in small-town Indiana in the ‘50s was listening to Harry Caray. News of the great baseball broadcaster’s death on Wednesday brought back waves of childhood memories.

You might have known Harry as the elderly, sometimes blustery broadcaster for the cable-televised Chicago Cubs. I knew him in his prime, when he was the radio voice of the St. Louis Cardinals. He made baseball a religion for us neighboring Hoosiers. We eagerly attached ourselves to Harry from the first “Hello everybody” of the pregame show to the final “So long everybody” of the postgame wrap-up.

Never will I forget fishing one Saturday with my father and hearing Harry’s voice wherever we stopped our boat. Every fisherman up and down the lake was tuned to Harry on a portable radio. The water was our grand cathedral and Harry was our Pavarotti.

Harry had a glorious way of making you wish you were right there in St. Louis at the game.

“Such a bee-U-tiful day at the ballpark,” he’d say. “It’s only the second inning, come on out and join us.”

We couldn’t get the Cardinals on TV, but Harry’s words were better than pictures anyway:

“It might be outta here! It could be! It could be! It IS!! A HOME run. Boy, oh boy, we needed that one!”

He made us visualize every pitch: “There’s the windup, the stretch, the hesitation, the pitch to the plate. . . .”

For opposition strikeouts, it was “HEEEEEEE struck him out!” Actually, Harry only had to say the first word: “HEEEEEEE.” That told you the outcome. But if it was a Cardinal batter, Harry gave a very quick “struck him out,” as if he could barely bring himself to say those three words.

And, of course, there was Harry’s famous “holy cow.” It covered quite a variety of situations.

Two stories about Harry that I love:

My colleague John Needham was watching on TV a few years back as the Dodgers were beating up on the Cubs one inning. Dodger announcer Vin Scully was capturing it all in great detail, but Needham told his wife: “Let’s switch over to WGN and see what Harry’s saying.”

“UN-beleevubul,” is all Harry could manage. I laughed picturing Harry’s pain.

Also: A reporter once asked him, “Harry, how come you never put a stop to those rumors that you had to leave St. Louis because you were quite the ladies’ man and having an affair with the boss’ wife?”

Harry’s answer: “Would you?”

Harry’s funeral will be held Friday at the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago. That’s been his town for 26 years. But some of us will always connect Harry with St. Louis, and those days when he brought great joy to small-town boys like me.

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823, by fax at (714) 966-7711 or by e-mail at jerry.hicks@latimes.com.