senior scribes
text

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.


  <
senior scribes
senior scribes
County News Online

is a Fundraiser for the Senior Scribes Scholarship Committee. All net profits go into a fund for Darke County Senior Scholarships
contact
Copyright © 2011 and design by cigs.kometweb.com