when i was young -- this would be the fifties -- my family would travel to iowa to visit [View all]
other family on memorial day.
and part of those trips always involved a trip with other family to visit the graves of the soldiers.
we just wander the cemetery -- looking at the bedecked grave sites with their flags and flowers.
if my family didn't travel to iowa -- we did the same ourselves in peoria.
always there were other families there doing the same -- it was something of an unspoken community event -- you all just went to to gaze. to See.
there would be small talk about dates -- if they knew a family -- there would be talk about what happened after and then move on to another bedecked headstone.
it was just a ritual that was part of memorial day -- it stopped at some point -- i don't really remember when -- but today -- probably because my family is dwindling -- i remember that.
the grilling and feasting with family always came after those trips to the cemetery.
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