‘It’s Flag Time!’ : Fourth of July: Customers at a Ventura store that sells Old Glory and other banners are buying strictly American.

Over at American Eagle Flags and Banners on Main Street in Ventura, you can get just about anything worth hanging off a pole, from flags of the United Nations to the city of Oxnard’s official banner.

But the customers who came in Friday afternoon, traditionally the store’s busiest day, had only one interest: Buying American.

“It’s flag time!” announced Mark Wellisch as he stepped into the store. Wellisch, 49, and his wife Barbara, 48, were purchasing their first American flag, a 3-by-5-foot nylon Dura-Lite with embroidered stars and double-sewn stripes.

“It’s our most popular model,” said Frances Harwood, decked out in red, white and blue behind the counter. “They last longer than cotton and people like their snap.”

Wellisch, who was in the service during the Vietnam War, paid $31.80 for his new flag.

“It’s a more patriotic time now than it was during Vietnam,” he said. “I feel better about the country.”

Wellisch said he plans to hang his new flag in front of the couple’s Ventura Keys home in honor of Independence Day.

Harwood and her sister, Carol Lanshe, both retired teachers, opened the store six years ago when Harwood got tired of traveling to Los Angeles to find flags for her classroom. The Ventura schools, along with local hotels, businesses and even the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, have been well-stocked since American Eagle opened its doors.

Today marks the last day of the unofficial “flag season,” which starts Memorial Day and ends July 4, Harwood said. “That’s when the most people come in. We usually do most of our business by phone.”

But nothing compared with the business American Eagle did during the Persian Gulf War. “Sales went right through the roof,” Harwood said. People were lined up out the door and it took more than a year to get the store’s inventory back in stock, she said.

It may be peacetime, but Harwood’s store was doing a brisk business Friday compared with most days. By midafternoon, Harwood and Lanshe had already sold more than a dozen flags and taken orders for at least half that many.

Estella Brown, 63, of Ventura came in to buy a small flag for her apartment after she realized the casket flag given to her upon her husband’s death was too large. “I didn’t just get it for the Fourth,” she said. “I’ll use it Memorial Day and Veterans Day as well.”

At American Eagle, 80 cents will get you a 4-by-6-inch flag complete with stick, ideal for parades, barbecues and centerpieces. Or, if your wallet is as big as your patriotism, you can purchase a 10-by-15-foot flag for $241. Also available are flag stickers, patches, banners, watches, pins and even flag napkins.

“We’re almost vexillologists,” said Harwood, referring to scholars who study flags and their history.

The last flag Whitten Yount bought came with its own history: It had 48 stars. Yount misplaced it when he moved to Oxnard from Orange County. “I think it’s in storage somewhere,” he said as he eyed a mounting set for his new flag, identical to the one purchased by Wellisch.

Yount, 52, said he displays a flag on most major holidays “ever since I can remember.”

“All you have to do is spend a little time outside of the country and you realize how lucky you are to live here,” he said. “It’s nice to live in a place where if you want to fly the flag, you can, and if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. There are still places in the world where that isn’t true.”

* SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: B3