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Decoration Day
By Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln lived in Gordon, Ohio during World War II and remembers
what Memorial Days used to be like. This day, Memorial Day, used to be
called, "Decoration Day," because it was a national holiday created for
the express purpose of honoring our dead by visiting the cemeteries and
placing flowers or other "decorations" on the grave sites.
When I was young, people cut off flowers and put them in glass jars and
took them to the cemetery. They would get out of their car or horse and
buggy and walk to the grave of a relative or friend and clean off the
tombstone; pull weeds around it, and place the flowers on the grave
site.
Cemeteries used to have local veterans show up on Decoration Day, with
flags, and drums and horns to sound the wail called, "Taps," that sent
shivers up and down the spines of strong farmers and made mothers wipe
their eyes and young ladies bawl like newborns.
From three miles away, the sound of the canon at the cemetery in Ithaca
could be heard in Gordon where we all waited for the same soldiers in
Ithaca to come over and do their annual thing. That shot we heard was
the signal for people to be quit and listen to the preacher bless the
dead and suggest they were no longer buried in their graves but had
gone on to Heaven. Others spoke about the War and veterans while ladies
under dainty umbrellas fanned themselves with Stutz and Sando Funeral
Home fans.
After all of this, a couple of old cars with gasoline ration stickers
on the windshields, came and screeched to a halt at the cemetery where
we stood. The men inside grabbed their rifles and got out, fumbling
with uniform buttons and lined up their hats in military style. It
seemed like we had waited forever for them to get here from Ithaca.
They were a squad of old veterans; chests covered in rows of colored
ribbons, marching in tight-fitting uniforms towards us. They stopped
and formed a straight line.
Now, fingers stiffened by arthritis and old war wounds, they fumbled
through the process of loading their rifles with blanks. When they
raised their rifles and aimed up at the sky people put their hands over
their ears and the Sergeant shouted, "Fire!" Nine triggers were
squeezed and a volley of sound echoed off the tombstones making those
who actually fought in war duck for cover. Babies screamed. Youngsters,
like me, dashed around their legs and snatched-up, still warm, the
brass shells.
Politicians took that all away and made "Memorial Day" a cause for
celebration and "Decoration Day" has been forgotten.
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