I Cleaned the Garage

Memorial Day.

I spent it cleaning the garage. I figured that on the scale of things one can do on this holiday designed to honor those who have died in the service of their country, garage-cleaning weighed better than shopping for a pair of black skinny jeans or curling up on the couch reading The Cookbook Collector (great novel by Allegra Goodman, by the way). Cleaning the garage seemed less self-indulgent, more, you know, disciplined, active, results-oriented, military. Particularly when one is cleaning the garage in south Louisiana, where the temperature by 10 am was 90 degrees.

Still, somehow, it did occur to me that sorting through old paint cans and tossing out broken badminton rackets was not quite what our national leaders had in mind when they created this holiday.

Although, actually, it's not all that clear what they did have in mind. For one thing, it's not clear who "they" were. According to some accounts, Memorial Day (originally called Decoration Day) started when Southern ladies began decorating the graves of Confederates soldiers with flowers. We do know for sure for sure that in 1868 General John Logan issued General Order No. 11, a command to decorate the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers buried in Arlington Cemetery, that by 1890 all northern states had recognized Decoration Day as a holiday to honor those who died in the Civil War, and that southern states refused to acknowledge the day until after WWI, when it became a day to honor the dead in all American wars. Now, think about what you have just learned, or perhaps already knew--although if you did know all that, geez louise, what kind of history nerd are you? I'm the ultimate history nerd, a history professor for pete's sake, and I had to Google that info. Anyone who just knows that kind of stuff needs to have sex more often. Really.

So where was I? Right. General Logan, Confederate-loving ladies placing flowers on Johnny Rebs' graves, and the Point of It All. Am I the only one who thinks it a bit strange that the origins of this holiday-- now officially a day to recognize and honor American military personnel, and particularly those who have died in combat to defend the United States-- rests in part or wholly in the South and in efforts to commemorate those who fought to destroy that Union of States that is the United States?

But, history aside, how is one properly to observe Memorial Day? When I was a small child, we'd always pile in the station wagon and head into the city to the cemetery, where we'd stand at my grandfather's grave for a few solemn moments--he was a Dutch immigrant, a garbage man rather than a soldier, but I guess Memorial Day made for a convenient duty visit--before careening out to look for evidence of gypsies in the grave yard: beer cans stacked high, plastic flowers, fried chicken bones.  And then it was off to Uncle Bud's or to the Deckers for good-hearted badminton games and Auntie Theresa's Sloppy Joes and grilled hotdogs and hamburgers and barbecued chicken and pototo salad and cole slaw and potato chips and brownies and popsicles, and the inevitable awful ride home, sticky all over, tired beyond belief, with an upset tummy. I don't recall any mention, ever, of the Fallen, or the Ultimate Sacrifice, or Those who Died so that We Might Live in Freedom.

I got more of that in high school, because I was in Band. Every year the Timothy Band marched in the Elmhurst Memorial Day parade. As I recall, we did a really spiffy, crowd-pleasing, marching version of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," and then we'd end up in the central park where we'd  stand, sweltering in our woolen black uniforms, sweat trickling down our backs, feet aching, desperate to be released, while some local dignitary dithered on about Patriotic Duty,  and the smell of grilled chicken wafted through the air and babies screamed and kids shouted.

Still, I guess the point is that we did Something Special. We stepped out of our routines and in so doing, we said, "This Is Important." Maybe we weren't too sure what "this" was. Still, we celebrated it the way humans do--by downing tools, by eating til we were sick, by letting go and laughing lots and grabbing on to what makes life livable.

And today, I cleaned the garage. And I think, maybe, I kind of missed the Point of It All.