Today is May 31 and I swear it seems like May has been around for at least 40 days. Why is that? I attribute it to my memory of when Memorial Day/ Decoration Day in my childhood was always May 30, no matter what day of the week it feel on. Thus, once you got to Memorial Day, there was one more until June 1. Simple.
No longer. When it was decided to shove some holidays around and create automatic three day weekends, Memorial Day became the last Monday in May. No less of an observance, just not traditional.
So this year Memorial Day was on May 29. Two more days until June 1. See what I mean? And depending on the calendar, that last Monday in May doesn't have to be the 29th. It can be an even earlier date. More days until June 1.
As kids in the '50s we threaded red, white and blue crepe paper through our bicycle spokes, making us very patriotic. We also attached baseball cards with clothes pins (remember those?) to the frame holding the wheels so that the spokes made the baseball cards flutter and sound like motorcycles (at least to us) as we pedaled.
I remember waiting to hear the parade come up Northern Boulevard to Corporal Leonard Square, a triangular piece of land at the intersection of Roosevelt and Northern Boulevard where the veteran's from the American Legion marching up from Main Street place a wreath. It was a very small parade, but there were some marching bands, the sound of which we heard from two blocks away.
The name George Sheu Square was later added to Corporal Leonard Square to honor an off-duty NYPD cop who was killed on his way to a Naval Reserve meeting early one morning when he interrupted an auto theft in progress outside his home on Murray Street. One of the assailants turned and fired from a small pistol and killed the officer. It was the same day my father died: July 11, 1987.
You can't live this long and not remember how you used to spend a few of those Decoration/Memorial Days. Trip to D.C. to see my father who worked there; Staten Island Advance road race to where my daughter, myself and friend Andy competed annually for several consecutive years, and where my daughter Nancy at 8 or 9 might still hold the record for her 5 mile effort. She would later win the Region 1 (7 Northeast states) Bantam Division, Junior Olympic Cross Country Championship at Bryant College in Rhode Island one November.
The annual trips to New Jersey to see our friends for a cookout in Belford, New Jersey, the "season opener" in their carport. These generally followed the day after the Staten Island runs. We saw a lot of the Verazzano Bridge those days.
There was a trip with my friend Dave to go back to his military school, Carson Long in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania. Lots of drinking that weekend.
And of course the Metropolitan Mile At Belmont, which used to be held on Memorial Day, but has now been moved in the racing calendar.
Memorial Day at he track was when my Uncle Vernon got a heart attack and I got to see the small hospital under the stands where he was rested before we took the ambulance ride to Franklin General Hospital. He got all the symptoms of a heart attack, and the Pinkerton got him and me downstairs to the full medical facility. My uncle gave me a $5 ticket to hold that he had on a Eddie Belmonte horse that had just won.
There was the Memorial Day at Belmont I was so sure Forego was going to win the Met Mile that I talked about his chances all week. I boldly told anyone who would listen I was betting $50 to win on him, my biggest bet to date, and the size of which I've never made since.
Heliodoro Gustines who rode Forego that day cooked him with insane early fractions, and the extreme long shot Arbees Boy won; Forego was second, paying a decent price to place since Arbees Boy paid something like near $100 to win. I was sick. Unsophisticated me, with no place back up, lost the $50 I was so sure I was going to win and convert to a $70 profit.
It can't be said I didn't learn a lesson that day. I've never stepped out of my betting zone since. If I won, I probably would have thought I could beat the game.
Memorial Day at Belmont was when I became aware that the flag stays at half-staff till noon, when it is raised when the anthem is played.
I also learned from the last manager I worked for, who I think was from Virginia at an Atlanta, Georgia company, that there was a Confederate Soldier Memorial Day or Veterans Day and that the Civil War to Southerners was known as the "War of Northern Aggression.". Never mind they fired first on Fort Sumpter.
With retirement, Memorial Day on a Monday is just another day off amongst all the days off. It makes May last forever.
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