Memorial Day

Memorial Day.

What sort of salutation does one use? Surely "Happy Memorial Day" is wrong for a day set aside to remember the American men and women who have died in war?

Memorial Day. The unofficial start of the American summer, a day spent shopping the sales and grilling at backyard barbecues and remembering the "Fallen." Tho' there seems to be a lot less remembering these days. Baton Rouge doesn't even have a parade. A good thing, I suppose, as all parades down here have been Mardi Gras-ified--doesn't matter if it's Christmas or St. Patrick's Day or 4th of July or a sports victory procession like the one greeting the Saints after the last Superbowl--it's all Mardi Gras, with vast drunken but good-natured crowds, breathtaking quantities of fried food, and enormous floats and the all-important "throws"--the stuff that float-riders throw and parade-goers catch: mostly plastic beads, medalllions, and cups, but also stuffed animals, ladies' lace panties, candy, foam footballs and frisbees, fake cigars, condoms, the occasional fruit or vegetable. I guess maybe the raucous south Louisiana parade culture wouldn't mesh well with the sober nature of Memorial Day.

But then again, when you think about the actual "Fallen," not the abstractions of the speeches but the actual guys, a few women but still mostly guys, mostly kids, just kids like Owen, trying to do the right thing in a world gone wrong, I dunno, wouldn't they have preferred a Mardi Gras-style parade over those somber processions led by elderly white gents with chests full of medals who drive up to the cemetery in limousines? Mardi Gras is the world-turned-upside-down, an affirmation of lunacy and rule-breaking and, most of all, an in-your-face insistence on enjoying the here-and-now right now, right here, on this sidewalk, on this street, at this never-to-be matched moment. Really, what could be more appropriate, more fitting, way to memorialize the deaths of too-young, brutally young soldiers, sailors, and marines?

Happy Memorial Day, fellas.