Patriotism on parade in Lakewood Ranch

Days before July 4, Lakewood Ranch’s Linda Tradler will pull her red wagon down Flycatcher Lane and plant hundreds of American flags in her neighbors’ lawns.

While she does it, she will carry a copy of “No Easy Day,” which is author and U.S. Navy Seal Mark Owen’s account of hunting down terrorist Osama Bin Laden, to help pound them into the ground.

“It’s better than using your belly,” she said with a laugh.

The book choice, although unintentional the first time, has stuck because it seems so appropriate.

The flags go up a night or two before a patriotic holiday, and down they come the evening the holiday ends. Most aren’t on her property, after all.

She started with the 50 or so flags she brought with her when she moved from New Jersey, and now puts out about 400 with the help of her neighbor Harry Hardy, who stores about half of them.

Tradler moved into her Greenbrook Rivers home in 2009 after living in New Jersey for 14 years. She lived in the Garden State  when terrorists flew jets into the World Trade Center in New York City Sept. 11, 2001.

“The whole country felt helpless, hopeless,” Tradler said. “I bought flags and lined the street in my neighborhood. We’d just sit outside and talk. You could see the smoke from the Twin Towers from Jersey for at least a month.”

Those were the first 40 flags, or so, to go up.

As time passed, Tradler continued the tradition, carting the flags down the street in the red wagon she once used to pull along her daughter, Andie. She would put them up for Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Flag Day and the Fourth of July.

When she moved to Lakewood Ranch in 2009, the red wagon came with her, even though her daughter was past the age for using it. First, she put the flags up around her home at the entrance into Greenbrook Rivers, and at a few spots along the roadway on her immediate neighbors’ properties.

She and Hardy, who lives three doors down, joined forces about three years ago.

“This is neighborhood pride,” Hardy said. “It’s just fun. It makes you happy.”

Eventually, Tradler branched out to the entire Greenbrook Rivers neighborhood, with flags lining every house on Flycatcher Lane and Wood Duck Circle.

“What Linda does is amazing,” neighbor Richard Gieringer said. “To me, she is a torch of sunshine when she takes her red wagon filled with flags and places them neatly in each yard to celebrate all of our veterans who are living or have given their lives so we can have our freedom. Many men and women have sacrificed their lives so we could have the freedom we have.”

“The flags make me happy,” 7-year-old Allison Rothhaar said. “It makes my neighborhood feel special and like we all care about our country.”

Her mom, Crystal Rothhaar, agreed. “Seeing the flags out for each holiday fills me with pride each time,” she said. “So many of the neighbors get involved, adding their own flags, and having a big event for the Fourth of July. It really makes the neighborhood feel like a big family.

Some in the neighborhood don’t know Tradler’s name, but they call her the “Flag Fairy,” Tradler said.

Sometimes, Tradler and Hardy find thank-you notes on the flags.

“I cry,” Tradler said tearing up as she pulled two of them out from a resealable bag. “Knowing those flags I put out bring so many memories to people — that’s why I do it.”