Memorial Day, 2009

These are the days I feel and sound like an old witch. Back in the day...when I was a youngster...you know, that kind of thing.

But here I go, anyway.

Denise and I went to the Memorial Day parade here in town. We don't observe Memorial Day when the rest of the world does, oh no. We observe it on the "real" day, May 30. Usually it's on a Tuesday afternoon when everyone has to work.

This parade is what tourists would call quaint, sweet, etc. There's a band riding on a bandwagon, there's a group of veterans in various uniforms, some marching, some riding in jeeps and last but not least...there's a group of schoolchildren carrying wreaths they've just made with the Grange. They'll place their wreaths on soldiers' graves in the town cemetery. One wreath will be tossed from the village bridge, like in Ode to Billie Jo.

These kids were wearing shorts, flip-flops, dirty t-shirts. I would understand if these kids couldn't afford "nice" clothes. But they can, oh they can. And I get that in 1966 we got new dresses for church and it's a different world now. I get that everyone is casual. But this just was disrespectful.

I guess it could have been worse: they could have been texting, right?