It was my good fortune to arrive in downtown Lincoln, Illinois, during Memorial Day festivities in 2006. My explorations stopped at once, of course, when I came upon the ceremonies being conducted in front of the Logan County Courthouse. (The courthouse is also shown above from a prior visit, in Route 66 appropriate black and white.) It was small town America at its best, with plenty of flags, veterans, fire engines, and lots of thankful and respectful people. I'm sure the food was great as well, but I did not have time to linger.
The gathering made me realize that most of the veterans I remember from Memorial Days past, back in New Jersey when I was a kid, are almost all gone now. They had their fun, though, in their time, and I remember that my first ever Mets game was as part of a contingent of World War II veterans, my father included. We traveled to Shea Stadium that day on a bus filled with disabled veterans; the trip had been arranged by the local VFW, of which my father was an active member. The old man took me aside beforehand, and warned me that I might have to help out by pushing a wheelchair. I don’t remember what I expected to see on that bus as an eight year old, but I found it filled with raucous, regular guys having a good time – it was just that a few of them needed some assistance getting to the keg on the back seat. It was a day game we had tickets for, and happily, no one seemed to notice how early in the day the festivities had begun. (The beer cups were passed around sometime in the AM; it goes without saying that veterans traveling without their wives should be able to enjoy a beer or two even if it is a little before noon.) I remember that the bus got loud, that just about everyone knew a better route to the stadium than the bus driver did, and that I received equal amounts of good-natured taunting from both the disabled adults and the able-bodied ones. The fellows made my first ever baseball game a memorable one. Route 66 took me back.
No comments:
Post a Comment