Walking around my favorite hometown this morning, I saw a man standing in front of the Post Office. He was wearing navy slacks, a white shirt, and a navy cap. He held a cut-away plastic vinegar jug, and a bundle of red crepe-paper poppies. He stood erect. He looked to be in his 80's
The man is a military veteran. You can see him and others like him standing around about this time of year, before Memorial Day, collecting money for veterans. It is Poppy Day, a day for remembering.
A middle-aged man stopped and talked with him for a few minutes, and donated some bills; maybe he was reminded of his father, or maybe he was also a veteran. A woman in her 70's stopped and chatted, too. She was a volunteer at the Plymouth Historical Museum, she told me. I bought a poppy, because it would be a Major Sin for me to walk by any one in uniform without acknowledging him or her. Because I've had a poppy almost every year of my life on Poppy Day. Because my Dad was a WW2 Marine who fought at Iwo Jima, Tinian, and Saipan. Because WW2 and the Marines were hallmark events in his life, and in my Mom's life, and gave them pride and place in their world.
My Mom collected for poppies last year, when she was only 89. It was her first Poppy Day without Dad. She stood with her collection box for a long time inside a local MotoMart, because they asked her to stand inside instead of standing out in the broiling sun which is where she was really supposed to stand, according to the Rules of Collecting. It was pretty hot that day. Mom acceded the move into air conditioning, but as she pointed out to me later "I didn't sit down though. I decided if the vets had fought through a war, I could stand up and collect for them." Pause. "I did lean against a chair a little, but not much."
There are all kinds of protocols associated with Poppy Day, in my memory. Certainly, buying a poppy also gave me the urge to head to the local VFW or American Legion and have a cold one. Those two institutions were and are the gathering place for the males in my family who served in the military--a goodly number. I remember attending alllll the Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veterans Day, and general parades where my folks proudly marched in their uniforms. As they grew older, more and more often they sat in vehicles and rode.
A few years ago, Dad was getting pretty frail. He refused until the last month of his life to use a cane, but his knees and back and body were shot from a long life of hard use, which included shrapnel, jungle rot and dengue fever, and a bulldozer that rolled on him during his long construction working career. He and Mom made their way to the downtown of their little city (pop. 2100) for what was to be their last Fourth of July parade. It was hot and humid, as summers in Southern Illinois are. But they went, because they needed to.
They weren't really prepared, with chairs or water or umbrellas, they just drove over to Main Street, a short distance from their duplex, and then looked for anyone they knew, to stand with. Their little city does a bang-up Fourth parade, everybody is in it, there's a carnival in the park, participants throw more candy out then most parades do at Hallowe'en, and you get to see everybody. For some reason Mom and Dad couldn't find anybody they knew, they got there a little late, and all the good places were taken. They found themselves standing by a house with a nice shaded porch full of people that Mom thought she knew. It didn't matter if she knew them or not, really, because she talks to everyone in a way that brooks no dismissal. She talks to you as if the discussion was the most important thing in life, and you are expected to participate. Its a gift, or a curse, depending.
So Mom started talking with the people on the porch. Dad was too deaf to particpate, which was unfortunate because of the two Dad was in many ways the more conversationally gifted, the more decidedly Irish Blarney Stone type. But Mom mangaged to convince herself and the residents of the porch that they knew each other, because her and Dad wound up in prime shaded seats with someone to talk to for the duration of the parade, with cold drinks to boot. I love those people, whoever they were. Mom can't remember their names.
But thats the beauty of Poppy Day. I didn't know the man in front of the Post Office today. But he sure was a stand-in for my Dad. And for my Mom. And for all veterans, and my childhood, and our history, and for the U.S.
No comments:
Post a Comment