REMEMBERING A MEMORIAL DAY>>> MANY YEARS AGO!

Today I am remembering a Memorial Day from many years ago. This is the introduction to my book ‘Safely Through the Fire’. It is written as fiction, but these things really happened. Sharing with you today in memory of Billy and all the ones I’ve loved who have passed on. Love life!!! It is precious!

 

* * * * * * * *

 

The parade was over.

 

The crowd of Memorial Day celebrants slowly gathered around the podium for the annual Memorial day speech and laying of the laurel for Springvale’s fallen sons and daughters.

 

“Springvale is coming of the Dark Ages,” Billy noted to the sister who accompanied him on this trip down memory lane. Neither of them had witnessed the festivities of the day in years. But it was THEIR parade. First as Scouts and then as players in the local marching band, they had done the route. And many times…

 

And now he was making the observation. Change was coming to this small lakeside community. “They’re finally letting a woman make the Memorial Day speech.” That was a fact. And it was definitely a step forward.

 

Anna and her brother listened for a few moments and then allowed the lure of the cemetery beyond to call them. “Let’s go for a walk.”

 

Little puffs of dust rose from their feet as they walked the familiar road. They followed its course as it lazily wound its way through the ‘at rest’ citizens of their hometown. The shade was cool. Geraniums fairly glowed in the late May sunshine. Engraved stones, polished and glistening in the sunlight surrounded them.

 

They knew where they were going. Gram and Grampa were buried in that far corner. And just beyond them was the small patch of ground their parents had purchased over 20 years ago. No marker graced the family plot. No one had dared to fill even ONE the eight empty gravesites. Not yet at least.

 

Anna picked a dandelion and blew the tiny seedlings into the springtime air. ‘Don’t you wonder…” she said absently, “don’t you wonder who will be the first one buried in here?”

 

She was unaware of the silence emanating from her companion at that moment. Or of how tense he had become.

 

She rambled on. “I think I would want to be buried here even though I’m married and I don’t live here anymore…”

 

Within minutes, Anna had wandered off to look up names of anyone she might remember from her eighteen years as a Springvale citizen. College had delivered her years ago, but one never truly leaves the town he was born into. It was part of her makeup. The stars and all. The meridians. It was her entry point.

 

She posed the question and let it go that day. She would one day recall the brief exchange as a terrible blunder.

 

For HE knew full well who would be the first. And he knew he would be breaking the hapless news to their parents within the next few hours. It would be the hardest thing he would ever have to do.

 

He COULD tell HER, too. He could tell her FIRST and draw to himself at least one ally before the anticipated storm. It might help to do it that way.

 

He opened his mouth to confess what he knew. And then looking at her in all her innocence, abandoned the exchange. There was no need to disturb her world. Not yet. She was too carefree and happy. Something HE would never be again.

 

No. Just let it go. Let it stay this way for awhile, he thought. It will all come crashing down on her soon enough…

 

©2001 Claire Vimala Anderson

 

For more information on Vim’s book, CLICK HERE! Many thanks for reading!

WHAT DID JOHN LENNON ACTUALLY SAY?

I was six years old when the Beatles phenomenon hit the USA like a storm. All I knew was that I wanted to be a Beatle when I grew up. I’ve done pretty well with that. I am singer-songwriter and I play a guitar on a stage! But it’s a real guitar – not a toy one – and I play on a real stage and not the fireplace hearth in my parent’s living room! I listened to their albums, trying to figure out which one was Paul. I contemplated how I might actually climb into the stereo so that I might actually be there with them… wherever that might be! No luck with that! All of this went fine and well for awhile.

 

However, time does some strange things. My six year old self would have been mortified to see her future self destroying those same beloved albums during the Beatle Burning era – mob action of a different sort. “The Beatles say they are more popular than God!!!” said the horrified masses. I guess I saw that as pure fact – no screaming mobs entered any church I knew of. But it affected people deeply including friends and family in my immediate surroundings. So following herd mentality, I joined in. I remember trampling on and scuffing the records in my family’s garage. Beatle magazines were in shreds. [Lucky note: one of them survives to this day without a cover!] I remember the feeling of indignant superiority that accompanied the process. I watched myself and wondered.

 

Years later again… Reason comes with age and computers provide access; so one day in the modern age, I finally looked it up. What exactly did John Lennon say that started all of the ‘Mop Top’ flames? There it was. I read his comments within the context of the article. And all I saw was a man who was telling it as he saw it. He was in the middle of something we saw only from the outside. Maybe he was disillusioned by his own place – watching the insanity from his lonely perch on the tower of success. I don’t know. But I didn’t see anything there worth a match and an angry bonfire.

 

Still, I can surely say that I was a part of Rock history – ashes included. I was there through the thick and the thin of it – and back to the thick again. And for that, my six year old self breathes a sigh of relief.

Lennon's comments appeared in a 1966 article by Marureen Cleave, entitled: How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This. His comments on Christianity appear here in full and in context.

-------

"Experience has sown few seeds of doubt in him: not that his mind is closed, but it's closed round whatever he believes at the time. 'Christianity will go,' he said. 'It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first -- rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.' He is reading extensively about religion." -M. Cleave

PHOTO NOTES: Chris Mackie's interpretation of the famous "I Love New York" photo of John Lennon. Seen and photographed at the Garden Gallery in Carlisle, PA. It's called "Lennon on Steel 4." Meet Chris here.