Pippin
Temps hit 80 and above here in Vermont today. Dogs wandering around with tongues hanging out. Sacked on cool wooden floors. We went into town and I had to blast the air conditioning. Apple trees are blooming everywhere. Lilacs just about to fully blossom for their traditional Memorial Day showing. When I was a kid, growing up in Peru VT and attending a one room school we always had a funny little parade on the last day of school before Memorial Day weekend. We put cut lilacs in Mason jars, filled them with water, and carried them to the cemetery at the north end of town. A boy in the front carried the flag, and we walked about a mile to put flowers on soldiers’ graves, and then came back to the school.
When I started first grade I was assigned two soldier’s graves — as was every student in this small school. One stone in the cemetery next to the school, one in the North Cemetery. Every year at this time — in my case, for 8 years – we’d place a Mason jar of lilacs on each of these graves. My two soldiers were Obediah Russell – a Civil War soldier who is buried in the cemetery by the school, and Duncan Grant, a WWII soldier – buried in the North Cemetery.
