Once upon a time Memorial Day observances were held on May 30, regardless of what day of the week that was. It was called Decoration Day.

While it was primarily a day to remember those who had died in our wars, it became a day when family graves would be visited and decorated with flowers. Flowers brought to the grave would be a true remembrance of the person who was buried there. It was considered both an expression of remembrance and respect.

Many families had graves spread throughout our county of Westchester and different surviving members were delegated to visit specific graves. So on each Decoration Day we would borrow people to remember.

We would place flowers mostly on the graves of my sister's in-laws and a few old family friends. It always bothered my mother that her family members were in far away New Jersey. She would want to go there and pay her respects.

But mostly on her mind, and seldom leaving it, was the grave of her infant son who had been buried in a Brooklyn grave by an unscrupulous person who had sold my parents a plot that belonged to someone else. We never found Fred's grave and in truth we, the children that had known him and some of us who had been born after him, did not spend anytime trying to discover where his body might be. The family was completed with my birth 11 years later.

We all heard my mother's story and while we felt sorry for her and for my father, we did not pursue the matter. Now everyone is gone and I know the emotions that come forward as distant graves are remembered.

But there was still the military side of the day and I can remember marching with the Boy Scouts. We marched in varying degrees of uniforms because most of us could not afford both a shirt and kerchief and hat. I wore a hand-me-down hat and a borrowed shirt. My tenderfoot pin was my own. I wore it proudly.

We marched and held ceremonies and heard speeches at every statue in every district of town. There were even World War I memorials in the part of town that was mostly Italian. The Irish and the Jewish were spread around town but the Italians seemed to have settled together.

In 1938 we were told that we could be proud of our country for going to the "war to end all wars." It hadn't done that and the drums heralding a new and more horrible war were beating. The brass bands were playing and the flag was raised everywhere. It was considered a sin to let the flag make the slightest contact with the ground.

The Star Spangled Banner meant a great deal to us and I don't remember complaints about it being too difficult to sing. Kate Smith had introduced "God Bless America" and we sang about mountains and prairies although many of us had never seen a prairie.

And so we come to today. Memorial Day is always on a Monday. There are a few sparsely attended parades that interfere with the charcoal grills and very few flowers are carried by hand to decorate family graves.

But around the world people are still killing each other.

War always forgets and is no respecter of persons.

Keep in touch.

Richard Learned writes about seniors' issues from his home in Meredith. He can be reached at wiseguy@metrocast.net.