Memorial Day

I played in a Memorial Day parade this morning.  I've been playing an old King 4-valve bell-front small-bore euphonium in the Natick American Legion Band for the past 4 years or so, in parades around eastern Massachusetts. Parades are an occupational hazard if you are a brass musician, but I welcome the infrequent exercise and the time outdoors. Upbeat marches played by 12 amateurs followed by a ceremony in which out of tune bagpipes played Amazing Grace and a pail of 15-year-olds played a tentative rendition of Taps.  

The more do I work with/for the military, the greater the importance Memorial Day has to me. Yesterday I took my sleeping son on a walk to a local cemetery and explained to him the importance of the observance. There among the graves of the Civil War veterans we talked about all of those men and women who died serving in the U.S. armed forces over the past 250 years. I spoke about his family members who died in armed conflict, both while in uniform and as non-combatants. I spoke about his family members and friends of the family who served in the military in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and in Iraq. He slept through it all, but I hope it sets the stage for a respect for the solemnity of the observance in the future.  When he’s older, he’ll enjoy the parade in front of our house and the fun of the (now) traditional barbeques, but I also want him to realize why we have the long weekend.

Avocados

I missed avocados yesterday.

My darling wife fed my son avocados for the first time yesterday while I was businessing several hundred miles away. She offered to wait, so I could enjoy the experience with her.  I said no—why would I hold my baby from experiencing things just because I can’t be there to ogle and take photos. But it did give me pause (cue “Cats in the Cradle”). I’m going to have to travel for work. That is simply a given. I’m not alone, of course; many other people—moms and dads—have to leave their families for work travel. I even enjoy traveling, but I don’t have to like being away from them. It is just going to take an extra effort when I am home. 

This post seems pretty prosaic.  But it is true, and it is what I’m feeling while sitting on the last row of a tiny plane, adjacent to the bathroom, in a chair that doesn’t recline, about 25,000 feet above the state of Delaware.