Thursday, May 29, 2008

A narrated Memorial Day

Memorial Day programs make me nervous --- or aggravated (speakers sometimes say truly damnfool things).

Granted, I remember some fondly --- at Columbia Cemetery one year when for lack of bugle, trumpet or coronet, a trombonist played “Taps.” Another at Rose Hill up here in the northland, blessed with one of world’s most well-meaning but stupefyingly longwinded and boring speaker, the assembled multitude heaved a collective sigh of relief when a mighty wind arose from the prairie out west, snatched the note cards from his hands and blew them over the north fence into a bean field. Misfiring M14s (complaining about the fact nobody‘s cleaned them in 20 years) can be entertaining --- providing no one gets hurt.

But I feel better about what’s become a routine early-morning stop on the Sunday morning before the day itself at the memorial to Iowa’s Vietnam dead on the grounds of the state capitol in Des Moines --- most of the time by myself; other times, with someone else: touch a few names, remember other names on other memorials, quick prayer, leave a few flowers, thank God you’re alive to do it --- but wonder why. There’s something about that sunrise hour ….

Allergy head and a late night at the office put me behind this year and it was about 11. Quite a few people around. Guy in a red, white and blue tie (maybe another Vietnam vet) earnestly trying to tell a tiny probable grandson what it was all about.

Two young moms and a few kids (including two in strollers) around the Vietnam memorial.

“See that man coming now, he probably remembers someone. He looks old enough to have been there.”

“Look, he’s praying.”

“Those cigarettes with the flowers (someone else‘s flowers this year, not mine)? Well, they all probably smoked and he thought they‘d like some.”

Well-meaning I’m sure, but disconcerting; I expect I’ll be back on dawn patrol next year, allergy head and all.

If I have the courage of my convictions, I’m going to stop again on my way through Des Moines this Sunday and take a few photos of Iowa’s official memorials --- Civil War (a glorious confection), World War II (the latest, and butt ugly), Korea (dignified and graceful),Vietnam (a shadow of the D.C. Wall, but good enough), but nothing for World War I (I wonder why) or for Afghanistan/Iraq. If photos appear here, you’ll know I made it.

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