The Memorial Day Weekend marks the beginning of Summer. Flowers bloom. Grass grows to a rich green color. Lilacs blossom for a short one week period. Baseball begins in earnest.
We have a new broadcast exclamation for a home run. Ryan Braun is being called up from a Brewers farm team to play 3rd base. He hits home runs. He is special. The Brewer Farm team he plays for has an announcer that calls a "home run" a "jack-jack-jackety-jack". So get ready fans, when Braun hits a home run, Bob Uecker (Brewers broadcaster) is sure to say "it is a long ball, get up, get up, get out of here, another jack-jack-jackety-jack"! I hope not.
Memorial Day is the one day I hold in reverence. Soldiers died to keep this country free. Millions of soldiers! It is a day to say thank you! Of course some creep will burn an American flag. Isn't free speech great.
Memorial Day was always a day of parades. VFW groups that had served in both World War I and II marched along with floats and high school marching bands. It was festive. It was solemn. It was a 21 gun salute at the local cemetery. It was a handfull of "spent" brass shell casings to play with from the salute.
Memorial Day was a trip to the cemetery with my Grandma Myrna to plant flowers at the "family" plot. My Grandfather had purchased grave sites for the family and had a huge marker placed on the location where generations were to be buried. Grandpa Chalk had a few bucks.
Memorial Day was the Indianapolis 500. 11:00 AM. The portable radio would carry "gentlemen, start you engines". The announcers would take you though the 4 turns of the brickyard track. You could hear the race cars whistling past. Billy Vukavich, Roger Ward. A.J.Foyt. The race would last well into the later afternoon with a steady drone until one glorious final moment when the winner was declared. NASCAR didn't exist.
Memorial Day is the start of the cottage season. For 25 years it was a place to go during the weekend. It was always too cold to swim but boats came alive on all the lakes. It meant "brat frys" and cookouts. It meant that the next 3 months would be conducive to family outings at the lake.
Memorial Day was always a Milwaukee Braves (not Brewers) double header. 6-8 hours of monotonous broadcast of the America's favorite past-time. Blaine Walsh and Earl Gillespe were to become famous announcers. Andy Pafko played for the Braves in left field. My dad had befriended him in "tryouts" years earlier.
So go forth. Enjoy the respite. It is Memorial Day. Always remember the brave souls that gallantly fought and sacrificed so that we could live as we do. It is so easy to forget.
Love,
Dad