Memorial Day Memories

Scout and my sister's dog, Bear, celebrate Memorial Day

I have a lot of memories of past Memorial Day holidays. I specifically remember Memorial Day 1964. We had moved into a new house the year before and in the spring of 1964 (It might have been '65 or '66. My memory isn't that good.) Dad had a six foot privacy fence built around our back yard. Dad, making use of his biggest asset, child labor in the form of his teenage son, had me slapping stain on that fence. It wasn't too bad. Dad was out there with me and together we listened to the Indianapolis 500 on the radio while we painted the fence. Yes, I know, why the hell would you listen to an auto race? There was a reason. Our new neighbor across the street was Harlan Bettenhausen, who was related to the auto racing family of Tony Bettenhausen. So every Memorial Day, Harlan and his family would go down to Indianapolis because they always had somebody in the race. That made it interesting. I honestly didn't care that much, but the constant buzz of the cars whipping by the radio booth helped move the time along. On another Memorial Day I remember being in the Boy Scouts (They eventually kicked me out.) and taking part in Memorial Day services down by the old cannon in Memorial Park. Lots of flags and gun salutes. It was fun.

A couple of weeks ago I suggested that I wanted to invite the guys I bowled with over for a cookout on Memorial Day. In my mind it would be nothing fancy. Burgers, beer, and maybe some potato salad from the Jewel. I made the mistake of mentioning it to Mark. He took my idea and ran with it. He expanded it, he added to it, and he made it into work. Harder work than staining that fence in 1964. With each passing day between the time I mentioned the cookout, and Memorial Day, Mark added things to his menu. Yes, Mark writes up a menu for every party we have. Whereas my menu would fit on a post-it note, Mark needs a legal pad. For days Mark was cooking. Cooking for fifty people. I only invited a dozen. Each time I wandered within earshot of him, Mark would bark out orders to me. I fetched pots and pans, I went shopping for supplies, I moved furniture, I gave Mark back rubs. So by the time guests started showing up Monday afternoon, I was whipped. I was so tired I thought I would just drop into the grass with the dogs and go to sleep. But I didn't, I hung in there thanks to beer, wine, and some sort of cigarette people were passing around. I survived.