Memorial Day memorandum.

Hot dogs.

Sunshine.

American flags.

Dime store candy on street sides and sidewalks.

Families celebrating and splashing in pools, lounging on decks and on front porches. Directing traffic in the blazing sun, cars lined up all the way to the street, band kids warming up their tubas, programs and plastic USA necklaces and paraphernalia to pass out. Well, at least that’s how we do it in my family. What an awesome day. It kicks off the start of my favorite stream of holidays starting in May and barreling right through December. The February and March holidays are hit or miss. Yes, you read that right. I don’t really care for Valentine’s Day. It’s only a thing because of the execution of two martyrs’, who both happened to be named Valentine. And to commemorate that we stuff our faces with chocolates and compare our lover’s gift to other lovers’ gifts on instagram.

But, back to the sunshine and hot dogs.

Since 1970 my family has volunteer coordinated the parade for our small town. If you drive through Kipton, Ohio between 2:00pm and 2:30 the Sunday before the Memorial Day holiday you’ll see a Lincoln memorial statue on the east side of the road with two large, black, square stones on the lawn in front of the gated statue filled with the listed names of veterans who have served and offered their lives in that service to their country where the Memorial Day program is held.

In the morning, the Sunday before Memorial Day, the first thing we do, as soon as dawn breaks, is set out the flags. The 45 second strip of road in Kipton is lined on both sides by full size American flags that we unroll, and set in 1’x1’ round, cement.

During one year's after parade picnic I ask my uncle, who is mid mouthful of a bite of baked beans, if there is another name for the cement flag holders. “What do you call those things? The things we put the flags in?”

He pauses mid bite. “We just call them flag holders.” Touché. The 25lb flag holders, and enough flags to set one out every ten feet or so get piled into the back of gramps’ chevy at dawn, just to be unpiled 5 miles down the road, a few minutes later. Lineup starts at 1pm. And it doesn’t matter if it snowed the day before the parade because the weather during lineup, in the center of the township hall parking lot where there’s no shade of relief from the unrelenting sun, is never under a balmy 90 with few or no clouds in the sky. Cue sunscreen and ray bans. The paraders start rolling at 2pm led by police officers, and participants range from 4Hers, to church groups, corvettes, the mayor’s limo, fire trucks, a remote control mini bus operated by my mom’s crush in high school, and a life size George Washington on horseback who informed me after the parade that it took him a whole year to piece together all the authentic items for the George W costume he wore. He also told me he had to practice being “stone-faced,” because he knew George Washington never smiled. I didn’t ask where he got the authority to make that statement.

After the parade a ceremony is held to honor those who have offered their lives to our country. It is here where I find my soul strings being tugged. As the veteran fireladies read the names of the men and women, the community watches while seniors, grandchildren, spouses, ancestors of these fallen men and women approach the podium to receive their carnation -our way of offering tangible appreciation- and I realize that somewhere a wife is kneeling at her soldier’s grave. A mother arranges a wreath on her son’s headstone. A husband and wife stand side by side with their hands clasped together, their heads bowed, footprints sunk into the fresh earth of their daughter’s final resting place. It is in these moments where I connect the greatness of service to the magnitude of sacrifice. We pass out cake, cookies, water after taps is played in the township hall across the street, clean up tables, fold up the chairs, and go home to picnic and water balloon fight. My children are soundly sleeping before sunset; exhausted from heat exhaustion, and the effort of being six and two. They will grow up in a country where they are free thanks to the service of the incredible men and women who offered their lives so that the nation’s children can fulfill the innocence of childhood, and enjoy hot dogs and popsicles with family gathered together on this day of memorial. Whatever your traditions may be, if you don’t have ones as rooted and as old as the founding fathers like my family does now is a great time to make some. While you enjoy your families please join the nation at 3pm for a one minute, national moment of silence. God bless you and your families.

Eat the hot dogs. Who cares what’s in them? Happy Memorial Day.