The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Sanctity of Memorial Day

Here's a snapshot of my grandmother with her winter coat on.  Trust me.  This might have been taken at a Memorial Day barbecue. 

Or maybe, more than likely, the Fourth of July.  My grandmother would not be smiling on Memorial Day.  She took that day very seriously.

Take, for instance, this one particular May holiday.  I had been invited by a new school chum to take in a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium.  I was over the moon with delight.  His family came to pick me up and I raced out of the house.  To do so, I had to scamper right through Grandma's part of the home downstairs.

"Where are you running like a crazy lunatic?"

I explained.  Baseball.  A doubleheader.   Hot dogs.  Peanuts.  Exactly what America should do on a national holiday.

"But it's Memorial Day.  You should stay home."

Huh?

Well, I didn't.  And her words bothered me all day.  I was twelve and still trying to put together the pieces of my family history.  Years later, I still have not.

We didn't talk much about it in the house.  The fact that my grandparents had sent four sons off to serve in the military during World War II and only three returned.  Three of my dad's brothers saw action.  My father fought gallantly with a Royal typewriter while stationed in an Army office somewhere in Japan.  One brother was killed exactly two weeks before V-E Day in 1945.  I was named after him.   We discussed him in this blog space before.  I've shared the sum total of information I have about him.

Yep, we almost never talked about it.

I'd ask questions of my parents and, when not reminded that I asked too many of them, got sparse information about the family member still buried in the south of France.  But, my grandmother?   Never said a word.   Oh, his name might have come up in anecdotes about the past.  But we never had a serious discussion about his loss. 

His purple heart hung in her living room.  I've seen the papers from the War Department.  I still have them in a file cabinet.  But they are just typed sentences on a now-yellowed page.  There's no emotion shown in them.   There was little emotion shown in our house. 

But, indeed, it came out in different ways.  Most notably in how my grandmother treated the sanctity of this one holiday.

Looking back, Grandma and Grandpa came from Germany probably around 1905 or 1910.  They were proud to be here in this country.  Who knows what their life must have been like over there?  But they came to America to make themselves a better life and they worked hard to do so.  Unlike the immigrants of 2014, my grandparents did their part to become true Americans.  They learned to speak English.  My grandfather could eventually read and write it.  Grandma would ultimately only be able to sign her name.

But they were Americans.   And, in little ways, I would hear how my grandmother loved the military that defended this homeland.

I'd hear it whenever there was a state funeral of some dignitary on television.  Grandma would look at the pallbearers.

"Those poor boys.  Having to carry that heavy thing up those stairs."

I'd hear it when she'd come in and I had commandeered her TV set for my own use.  I'd be watching some war movie or show.

"Turn that off.  We don't wanna see what happens to those poor boys."

Over and over and over again.   It was "those poor boys."

For years when I was a kid, Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30 without fail.  But, naturally, government workers stuck in their two cents and wanted a long weekend.  The holiday was changed to the last Monday of May.  Grandma was incensed.

"It should be May 30.  But everybody wants a free vacation.  They forget about those poor boys."

I wanted to know about one of those poor boys.  But it never was discussed.  I envision in retrospect that the days and years after 1945 had to be hard for my grandparents.  I remember one Memorial Day when Grandma actually hung in her living room window the little banner that showed our family had four people fighting in the war.  It likely hung in their Bronx window back during World War II.  She inexplicably displayed it again.   I never knew why. 

And, of course, my question was likely never answered.

Yes, Memorial Day was serious business for my grandparents.  And, as I sat at that Yankee Stadium doubleheader slurping up all sorts of ballpark treats, I wondered just what was behind it all.  I had still gone to the game that day.  And violated the sanctity of Memorial Day.

But, of course, not before I helped Grandma with the traditional national holiday ritual.

Our flag.

I've written this before, but it bears repeating in light of another Memorial Day and a memory about my grandparents.  You see, we had this flagpole in our front yard.

Do you know how to correctly fold an American flag?  Well, I do.

And it was my grandmother who taught me how.  And, on Memorial Day or Veteran's Day, it was on that flagpole in front of the house.

Yes, my grandparents were that American.

Our big honking flag pole was cemented right in the middle of the front yard. It actually stretched past our apartment on the second floor. It was as big as any you might find in front of the most important of Federal buildings. But it was all ours. Right there where my grandmother could easily see it from her first floor living room window.   

Early in the morning of every national holiday,  I would hear the hallway closet downstairs creak open. I'd envision the boxes being moved this way or that. The smell of mothballs would waft up to the second floor.   

Yep, Grandma was rooting around for the American flag again.

I'd walk around the neighborhood and not see a lot of the same patriotism on these holidays. Certainly, not an American flag being hoisted up a huge pole at the crack of dawn. But, that's what my grandparents did like clockwork.  After my grandfather died, I could no longer exist in mere passive curiosity.   

"You gonna help me now."

Okay, Grandma. I figured it was only going to be a slight diversion to my day of play. Yet, I had no idea how seriously she took this ceremony. The way in which the flag was unfolded. How it was handled with the utmost of care.

And, at the end of the day, the precise folding of the banner. Military style. To the strictest of code. My first few attempts did not go well.

"No, no, no. Not that way. This way!"

The words had a sharp tone. Grandma meant business with this. And I was treating it all like Gomer Pyle, USMC. 

 After a while, I got it. And we responded on every holiday. Grandma and I got into a neat rhythm when it was time to put the flag away. We did it as flawlessly as we could. Moreover, we did it with the proper amount of respect.

Several years later, I asked my father about that tradition. What was I missing? What was behind the flag ceremony?   

"Well, you do know that's the flag that covered your uncle's casket?"

Another small tidbit floating in the Ocean of No Information.  Oh. In this recent picture of that house years after I left it, the flagpole stands as tall as ever.

So, tomorrow is Memorial Day.  May the 26th.  Grandma would be unhappy one more time.  And I am going to a ballgame at Dodger Stadium.  Just like years ago.

I may linger a little longer over the flag that waves over the stadium.  And think again about my grandmother.  And the holiday she held so dear.  For reasons I still can only guess about.

Dinner last night:  Roast beef French Dip at BJ's.