REMEMBERING, THEN AND NOW: Thoughts For Memorial Day 2022

Four days a year a special American flag flew from a tall loblolly pine in my family’s front yard.

Every Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day and every Veterans Day, my father would get up early then wake me, my sisters and younger brother.

We would traipse into the front yard, yawning in Houston’s early morning humidity, in summer standing barefoot on St. Augustine grass, on Veterans Day wearing shoes in November’s cooler weather.

Then Dad would tie the flag to the rope, one of us would give the rope a pull, and the huge wall of red, white and blue cloth would rise and billow as it rose, the only sound a pulley 35 feet up the pine creaking with each tug…

…I didn’t realize it at the time, but my father’s flag-raising pageants were my first taste of veterans memorials. Our short front-yard ceremony was a very local Arlington.

Check it out.