Memorial Day - If I'd

Memorial Day - If I'd had a blog two years ago, in May of 2001 - or pretty much any year of my adult life, for that matter - I'm sure it would have been a screed that began:

Americans don't get Memorial Day any better than most Christians "get" Easter.

Back then, it felt like our society had profaned the meaning of this holiday almost beyond comprehension.

I am old enough that quite a few of my high school teachers were World War II veterans; there were also a few Korea and Vietnam veterans sprinkled throughout the faculty when I was a kid. And I remember how dead-serious they all were about Memorial Day, and about teaching us what it meant. I remember one old teacher of mine - an otherwise unmemorable teacher who, rumor had it, had been one of very few survivors of a tank-destroyer platoon in Italy - who gave the most moving elegy to Memorial Day I'd ever heard, before or since. The man had his scars from the war; when a car backfired, or when a malfeasant kid popped a loud paper bag in the hall, he'd occasionally flatten himself on the floor, just like he'd done 35 years earlier.

I don't remember the elegy, of course - I was 14 at the time. But I remember the look, and the way a roomful of very snotty high school freshmen shut up in the way that they only shut up for something that is directly in their face.

The holiday itself, of course, has long had the sort of gravity you get from Labor Day - it's a day off. A three day weekend. First shot at the lake.

Except for those, of course, whose loss was still in recent memory - as, of course, World War II is for many, still.

Now, a whole new generation has something to remember. Since last Memorial Day, we've had a terrorist attack and two major wars tacked onto the national conscience.

Does that mean Americans take the holiday more seriously than we did? I'd say yes, even if incrementally and (probably) temporarily so.

Today, I'm off to a cemetary in Crystal, to visit the grave of my kids' grandfather, who passed away a little over a year ago, lucky enough to have survived World War II to pass away in his nineties. He was in the Navy, on a destroyer that survived some near-legendary scrapes with the Japanese.

Then, it's off to the park. More blogging as time warrants, later on tonight.

Have a great Memorial Day.

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Posted by Mitch at May 26, 2003 10:07 AM