The tall man in the middle, that's my Uncle Gale. He served his country. So did his brother, my Uncle Swede, the guy with the floppy hat in the lawn chair in front of Gale. They were among the 100 or so folks who gathered this morning under the stately pines in Lincoln Cemetery to honor our veterans on Memorial Day in Whitehall. It is always a solomn ceremony, especially during the Reading of the Roll of local veterans no longer with us. That list grows longer every year and includes more and more names of people we grew up with. The ceremony still concludes with a 21-gun salute and the playing of Taps, but kids no longer scramble for the empty rifle casings. I guess we finally grew up.
Bitter sweet memories...memorizing the Gettysburg address, etc. I'm embarrassed to say I don't know who of our generation in and around Whitehall is listed on the Vietnam Wall. We lived in DC during it's formal dedication and it was bone-chilling emotionally. One magazine reported that a father said to his unruly son, quiet, this is like a church.
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