Remembering the Important Things

I was born and raised in the Midwest. Even though I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, my summers were spent in my maternal grandparents’ home in small-town Wisconsin. Come the end of school, my grandmother would pack up the Buick Roadmaster and head back to her childhood home to open it for the summer.

I would be dropped off soon after, to spend my summers with my cousins, enjoying the pace of small-town life, hot summer days, languid evenings listening to baseball games on the radio, playing cards, or sitting on our wonderful screened-in front porch listening to the cicadas and watching the fireflies.

Childhood Memories

My childhood memories of Memorial Day always include the City Park monument to the Union soldiers who served in the Civil War.  Their mid-thigh frock coat, wrapped with a wide leather belt, complete with the cartridge box. Their kepi perched at an angle on their head. Their square-toed leather boots. 

All these elements carved in granite and sitting on a five-tiered platform from which arose a four-sided column some twenty-five feet in the air, atop of which perched a bronze eagle, wings extended.

Our Front Porch

Our front porch looked directly at this monument that sat in the center of the city block.  My grandfather told me that the eagle flew away every night after sunset and would come back first thing in the morning, and I believed him!

For an entire summer, this was my playground.  I’d climb the monument, crawl in and out of the legs of the granite guardians, and imagine the great battles of the Civil War.  These were not the vivid realities of a Ken Burns documentary, but the romantic imaginings of having watched Daniel Boone and The Rebel on black and white TV. Followed by cookies and Kool-Aid at one of our houses.

Memorial Day Celebration

Every Memorial Day, chairs would be set up along with a dais, and the City dignitaries would convene.  A wreath would be laid, speeches made, and the Star-Spangled Banner sung as the flag was raised.  Taps would be played and the VFW honor guard would fire off its 21-gun salute.

Later that day, our family would make its way to the graveyard, and bring flowers for our ancestors.  We would join other families intent on the same mission, ending up with chance meetings of folks who hadn’t seen one another in a year, and promises made to get together soon.

Later that day, we’d walk down to Main Street and watch the parade, ending the day by returning to the front porch and waiting for the house to cool down.

Monuments

The weekend has been set aside as a national holiday, which means local civic organizations have the opportunity to honor the living and the dead. The youth groups, ranging from scouting to church groups drape bunting over convertibles and march in orderly fashion together behind the festooned cars. High school bands pull together their final performance, closing out a school year.

Veterans’ groups are, of course, pre-eminent in their display of flag and devotion to country. In my youth, I remember Civil War Veterans being part of the parade, followed by Spanish American war veterans, WWI, WWII, and Korea.  My generation protested, but inevitably made its own contribution to the war dead in Viet Nam.

This Arc of Sacrifice

It astonishes me that I have such a broad arc of history within my lifetime.  It saddens me that so much of it has been filled with conflict.  It’s not that the causes weren’t worthy of the sacrifice of life, I just wish that we could discover better methods to resolve our differences.

Conflict has changed over my lifetime, but the outcome remains the same.  Suffering, loss, displacement, all consequences of conflict that may never be resolved.  Just because we no longer do it face-to-face, doesn’t mean the loss is any less intense.

What’s Happening in Your Neighborhood?

This holiday weekend, Americans are gathering for the start of summer.  In spite of the cost of gas, many are taking off on road trips, or heading to the summer cottage, or getting the boat out of storage and getting it shipshape for the lake or river, or ocean.

These are the underpinnings of generations of memory-making.  Traditions handed down from parent to child and repeated every year at this time.  It’s what makes for smiles in the older members, rolling-eyes in the younger ones, and the opportunity to re-connect and forget about the outside world for a long-weekend.

My Memorial Day, 2026

I will be putting my flag out because that is a tradition of honoring the fallen I like keeping.  I won’t be going to any parades, or joining in any barbeques.  I can’t stand as long as I used to and I really don’t like crowds all that much anymore.  I do enjoy seeing others enjoying these things, though!  So, instead, I will stay home, content with my surroundings.

I will spend my day happily touring my memories. Trips to the lake, food, remembering relatives and stories, and that delicious suspension of time and worry until the sun goes down.