A Golden Girl: Remembering Memorial Day

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“I don’t believe Memorial Day is for partying, stuffing myself with BBQ or ice cream and strawberries”

By Kathryn Ross

There is a photo of me looking tall and gawky in my green Girl Scout uniform. My face is framed by bobbed hair and a dark green beret. I’m marching with my fellow Scouts in the annual Memorial Day Parade. That was back when there were hundreds of Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Back when the baby boomers were coming into their own.

I remember after the parade we would all swarm around the little Elmhurst Dairy building on the corner of Main and Hanover streets, at the end of the parade route. But we didn’t just march in the parade to get a free ice cream cone. We even practiced – left – right – left – right – skip to get in step – left -right, etc. because we were proud. We were proud of ourselves for being Scouts and helping throughout the community. We were proud to be Americans living in the land of the free and safe from tyranny and not being one of those pot-bellied, hollow-eyed children who were starving in Africa, who we saw on the TV every night and that our mothers reminded us about when we failed to eat our lima beans.

Most of all, we were proud of our fathers. Back then, we didn’t realize that we should have also been just as proud of our mothers. That wouldn’t happen for 10 or 15 years.

Right then, as we put one foot in front of the other, skip to stay in step, it was our fathers we were most proud of. They were the men who saved the world for Democracy. The ones who put on white, green or blue uniforms and sailed off to Europe or the Pacific to fight the nasty Nazis or the wiley Japs.

 I remember when I was very young and seeing old men sitting on the street with  a shirt sleeve pinned up or a pant leg folded up where an arm or a leg should have been. It frightened me. Even when my Dad explained they were veterans, seeing them still filled me with fear. I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten over that trauma, but now it’s not so much fear as it is sadness.

For me, Memorial Day was not the first holiday of the summer party season that it is for many today. From the parade in the morning to riding in the back seat of the Ford over the winding roads of Pennsylvania to Westfield, it was a duty. We weren’t headed to my Aunt Dorothy’s to enjoy a cookout or to play games in the backyard. The car’s trunk was full of flower pots and urns. They were filled with flowers that my father and mother had dutifully arranged after buying plants from Simon’s Market on South Main Street. I remember walking through the rows of colorful plants at the market while my parents debated whether this or that plant was too well bloomed to be ready for Memorial Day.

When we reached the tiny town of Westfield where my Aunt lived across from the aromatic milk plant, we would drive directly to the cemetery. There we would walk among the tombstones, placing the pots and urns on the family graves. Of course, I was a lot more careful as to where I placed my feet. You never knew when bony fingers would reach up out of the dirt and grab your ankle. After all, I didn’t know these grave dwellers, even if they were family.

I imagine my parents got a kick watching me tiptoe around the graves reading the names off the faded headstones of my long-gone relatives.

To me, Memorial Day was still Decoration Day, and a day to pay our respects to those who were gone, whether or not they were sailors, soldiers or Marines. I still feel that way today. Boy, those early lessons really stick with you, kind of like walking does.

I don’t believe Memorial Day is for partying, stuffing myself with BBQ or ice cream and strawberries. For me, Memorial Day is a day to remember and say thanks to not only our service members who have passed on or who never returned from war, but also to our forebears who helped to make our lives what they are today. Compared to, say, Gaza or Ukraine or much of the rest of the world, our lives are pretty darn good.

Take time from the party to remember Memorial Day.

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Laurie Senn Sagerman, 70, Wellsville

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