Long Beach maverick is gone, but his work still flies high, educates and entertains

No one could raise a flag -- or a controversy -- quite like white-bearded Thomas "Ski" Demski.

His Long Beach neighbors once took him to court, alleging to no avail that he violated a noise ordinance by flying a 30- by 60-foot U.S. flag at night in his frontyard.

A gadfly at City Council meetings, Demski regularly ran for the council or for mayor, campaigning on a motorcycle with a macaw, Peppy, on his shoulder. Later, he ran a bumper-sticker presidential campaign for Peppy as an alternative to Ross Perot.

In 2000, Demski asked the city to declare his 132-foot flagpole a cemetery so his ashes could be stored there. The city said no. But when he died two years later, at age 72, the vertical burial went ahead as planned.

It went ahead as planned, that is, after his shirtless body lay in a plexiglass casket during a wake at his house so folks could see the tattoos of flags, eagles and Santa Claus covering his torso.

Long Beach, needless to say, is a bit quieter without Demski.

But his Superflag business, managed by his trustee, Jim Alexander, still sells flags as large as 30 by 60 feet and rents models as big as 200 by 505 feet for $13,000 a day. Patriotism can be pricey.

And the pole with his ashes on top still stands in the frontyard of Demski's house/headquarters, along with a bust of him.

No flags fly at night, though.

"It's too expensive," said Alexander, a former U.S. Coast Guard officer. "To light it would cost up to $400 a month."

But the demand for outsized flags has remained bright.

Over Memorial Day weekend, Superflag donated a 95- by 130-foot model for a Long Beach State baseball game. This Fourth of July, at least three Superflag products will be on display around the country, and negotiations are underway to unfurl the 500-footer at a Harley Davidson event in Sturgis, S.D.

The latter banner was strung out across Hoover Dam in 1996 and won Demski a place in Guinness World Records in the "world's largest flag" category.

In his characteristically offbeat fashion, Demski wondered if he might also win recognition from Guinness for a second accomplishment, undergoing a nine-way heart bypass operation.

Alas, he said, "Guinness doesn't include that kind of category [and] besides, my doctor said he'd once done an 11-way bypass."

Demski, who started out as a bumper sticker salesman, became involved in flags in a big way around 1980 when he saw a giant Stars and Stripes flying outside a car dealership along the San Diego Freeway.

"I thought, that really looks good."

He erected his frontyard pole -- at a cost of $16,000 -- and christened it The Pole in honor of his Polish heritage.

When American hostages were released by Iran in 1981, Demski displayed a 47-by-82-footer in his frontyard. Soon his flags, made for him by a various manufacturers, were displayed at sporting events, county fairs and parades.

In 2001, he took the 47-by-82-footer to Washington, D.C., for President George W. Bush's inauguration.