Paying Respects on Memorial Day

This weekend was amazing, as it is every Memorial Day weekend as was the annual tri-barbecue, with variations each day on classic barbecue food. It's not only about the marinade changing on the chicken wings...my dad is concerned with the presentation of the entire barbecue to be different each day. He likes to shoot for his hopes of landing the cover page on Home and Gardens Magazine - Memorial Day Edition.

Beer seemed to be a problem among my uncles this year. There was an issue when it came down to the last chilled beer in the cooler. Five men cannot share one beer. And I thought it was ridiculous that they were all considering to wrestle for it. I don't know if a Samuel Adams is worth wrestling over, but they wanted to nonetheless. I threatened that I would take the beer and smash it on the ground if they did something so stupid as to wrestle over a beer. One of my uncles looked me right in the eye and told me if I touched that beer that he would dump the cooler on me. I wanted to test his bluff, or what I interpreted as a bluff. So I took the beer and threw it in the street - and it shattered of course. All five of them took the cooler and threw the icy water at me. A very interesting memory to say the least.

Along with our fair share of barbecues, one of my favorite things in the world occurs -- the infamous [made up tradition] “Lighting of the Sparklers” every Sunday before Memorial Day, which consists of my brother and I running around the backyard, in a poorly designed obstacle course, lighting as many sparklers as we can at each obstacle, in a minute. The worst part is trying to find all the burnt sticks afterwards - there were literally over 50.

But aside all the fun, my family and I pay our respect to the fallen soldiers. My grandfather fought in WWII, and it isn’t that he brags about it every Memorial Day, but he has the concept of commemoration ingrained in my mind as well as the minds of my entire family.

This morning we went to a rather large gravesite for those who have died in war. One of my grandfather’s friends – Albert Freedman – died right along side my grandfather, in an attempt to save my grandfather’s helmet.

The story goes, as we hear of it every year, Freedman and my grandfather had known each other for most of their lives. They had been neighbors, and really became good friends when they were in school. My grandfather was the more careless character of the two men, and “Fidgety” Freedman, the nickname my grandfather gave him, was always nervous if something was out of place. My grandfather claims it was the worst case of OCD that he’d ever seen in a man.

When they both were sent off to war, I can’t remember where my grandfather said that the accident happened, but he said that he and Freedman were trying to help a few of their injured soldiers back to safety behind a building. When my grandfather bent down to help another soldier up, his helmet feel off and rolled down hill about ten feet from where they were all standing. Freedman started to freak out and my grandfather yelled at him to not worry about it, but Freedman ran after it anyway. On Freedman’s way to get it, he was right in an open area, and he was shot to death. My grandfather was so devastated and angry and still is today.

So that is what we do on every Memorial Day – we visit Freedman’s gravesite and hear the story retold. It just makes the holiday very meaningful. It’s a reminder that more should be embraced than a day off from school.