It truly is a grand old flag. And this is the week to celebrate it.

Tuesday is Flag Day, but did you know this entire week is federally designated as Flag Week? I didn’t realize that until I did some research on Old Glory the other day.

I’ve been noticing a lot of flags on display lately. Maybe it’s because of a surge in patriotism. Maybe it’s that the high winds we’ve been having make the flags more noticeable.

Or maybe it’s just that I’ve been paying more attention.

At any rate, it’s nice to see our flag snapping in the breeze in so many places.

On Memorial Day we drove 569 miles from Ruidoso, N.M., to Waco. Along the way we counted 521 flags. That’s almost one flag per mile. When you consider how many empty miles of West Texas and eastern New Mexico we covered on that drive, that’s impressive.

I turned on the computer to look for statistics on the number of flags flown in the entire United States, but didn’t come up with anything credible. But I did see that the Architect of the Capitol — who provides members of Congress with flags that have flown above the U.S. Capitol — fulfills more than 100,000 of those requests a year, with the number of requests growing constantly.

I stumbled across some interesting nuggets of flag history as I was Googling about cyberspace.

For instance, did you know how the nickname “Old Glory” came about? And did you know that Old Glory is actually one specific flag?

In 1831, some friends gave William Driver, a ship’s captain from Salem, Mass., an American flag before he departed on one of his voyages. As the banner fluttered to life aboard his ship for the first time, Capt. Driver exclaimed with pride, “Old Glory!”

The story doesn’t end there. When he retired to Nashville six years later, Capt. Driver took his beloved Old Glory with him.

When Tennessee seceded from the Union, Capt. Driver had the flag sewn into the lining of his bed covers so Confederate loyalists couldn’t find and destroy it. When Union forces captured Nashville in 1862, he joyfully ripped out the bedding seams and revealed the 24 stars and 13 stripes of Old Glory.

The flag was eventually donated to the Smithsonian.

Here’s another historical flag fact for you: It wasn’t until June 24, 1912, that the flag’s proportions and star layout were established officially.

President William Howard Taft signed an executive order calling for six horizontal rows of eight stars, with a single point facing upward. Until then, flag designs were inconsistent.

Although the Continental Congress established red, white and blue as the colors of the flag, there’s no official record of why those colors were chosen.

But we’ve got a pretty good idea because in 1782, the Congress of the Confederation chose the same colors for the Great Seal and cited the reasons on the congressional record.

White represents purity and innocence, red was chosen for valor and hardiness, and blue stands for vigilance, perseverance and justice.

And in a Technicolor world, which shades of red, white and blue are the correct ones to use on a U.S. flag? Well, in today’s printing world specific colors are defined on the Pantone scale. The colors of our flag are Dark Red (Pantone 193C), White (Pantone safe) and Navy Blue (Pantone 281C).

In case you were wondering about the right way to fold a flag, here’s the drill:

There are 13 folds altogether — two folds lengthwise and 11 triangular folds. The “union,” or the blue square with the stars, should be the outer fold.

I ran across a bunch of great quotes about the flag during my research. One of them is by the clergyman Henry Ward Beecher. Here’s what he wrote in 1861, as the nation was torn asunder by civil war:

“Our flag carries American ideas, American history and American feelings. It is not a painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the Constitution. It is the Government. It is the emblem of the sovereignty of the people. It is the NATION.”

The other quote was from Reagan Brown. He earned the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and the Silver Star serving in World War II. Reagan later was Texas agriculture commissioner, and much later would become my father-in-law. In 1972, at a time when our nation was rocked by strife about the Vietnam War and the flag wasn’t always afforded the respect it deserves, Reagan wrote this:

“Why do we stand when the flag goes by? . . . So we can get a good luck at the red, white, and blue as it passes by, representing all of those sacrifices, all those hopes, all of those things we want for future Americans.

“This flag going by gives you the privilege to keep sitting if you want to. But if you are part of the fabric of those who have made it possible for you to rise up in respect, you by your actions will trigger a standing ovation. So stand tall when the flag goes by, so it can always pass your way again.”

Here’s to standing tall for Old Glory. May it forever pass our way.

Happy Flag Week.

Donnis Baggett is publisher of the Waco Tribune-Herald . Email him at dbaggett@wacotrib.com.