The state has released copies of the hundreds of replacement flags, seals and state mottoes that people submitted – with the finalists scheduled for a review by an august body of experts starting at 2 p.m. on Thursday.
Nobody at Universal Hub is a member of the Massachusetts Seal, Flag, and Motto Advisory Commission, which is probably just as well, since neither of our two top choices – above and below – made the list of finalists (for what it’s worth, that is no mere dinosaur, it’s a Podokesaurus holyokensis, it’s named for Holyoke and, yes, of course, it’s our official state dinosaur).
The second flag probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway, because lobsters don’t really represent the state west of, oh, 495, we suspect (also, we’d modify our first choice to make that cup an iced coffee).
Our third choice is possibly too subtle:
Props to whoever came up with a design to unite west and east: A golden basketball in the air, held up by a whale’s tail.
But take a look for yourself and see which one you prefer…