Before the event fades and is replaced with another, I share with you a Memorial Day experience. For the first time I was asked by a community service club to join some of my old buddies and ride on a float in a Memorial Day parade. These organizations are not being able to get the WWII vets to participate as in the past because of age or the thinning of their ranks by death, have turned now to us ‘youngsters’ to fill the seats on the floats.

Before I tell you of the playing of “Dixie”, let me set the stage. The parade was held in a medium sized (pop. 45,000) New England town. The sidelines were crowed by folks of all ages, babies in arms to those in wheel chairs, and although the majority of the viewers were middle class Whites with multi-national heritages, there were every race of various colors of tan and black in large numbers along the route. I was the only Southerner on the float.

A CD player-speaker system on the float was playing Lee Greenwood’s album of patriotic music. There was such songs as ‘America the Beautiful’, ‘God Bless America’, ‘Proud to be an American’, on and on and on. The list did include “Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

All of a certain a rendition of ‘Dixie’ started to play. No change of reactions came from the folks on the float or the sidelines. It was there as a patriotic song, among others, honoring the men and women who fought the past wars for this country. At first I thought that just maybe no one knew what was playing. I leaned over to a long time friend, a retired Navy Captain and said, “Do you hear what’s playing?” He said, “Oh yeah, you should have brought your flag”. We both had a chuckle. (BTW, Mr. Greenwood does a real great job on the song.)

The parade lasted for about an hour and a half. And lo and behold, near the end of the parade the CD had recycled and there it was again. In a different section of town, sort of a different type of faces on the sidelines, and then again no change of waving and cheering from the crowd.

I look back and do believe that this has happened before, can happen again, and the difference was simple: ‘right time, right place, and for the right reason’.