Last year's Memorial Day was cool and murky. This is New England. Cool and murky can happen any time of year. But last year, it definitely fit the mood.
Usually on Memorial Day, a veterans group puts out thousands of flags on the Boston Common: one for each Massachusetts citizen who died fighting for our country from the Revolutionary War on down. Last year, they put out a few hundred, separating each flag from the next by a Covid social distance of six feet.
Most weekends - especially holiday weekends - Boston is packed. Last year, it wasn't. Sometimes I let these hordes annoy me. Last year, I missed them. I spent the day napping and moping around.
This year, things are looking up.
If we haven't yet completely turned the corner, the corner is well in sight. As of last Tuesday, eight states had given at least one shot to 70%+ of their population. All six New England states were in this group. (Joined by NJ and Hawaii.) With New England all looking pretty good, it is now safe to walk around the region.
Good thing. Later this week, I'm heading to New Hampshire for a getaway with my sister Trish and niece Molly. Later in the month, I'm off to Vermont. Great escapes!
The Memorial Day weekend weather this year has been no great shakes: cool - make that cold - and rainy. Just about as nasty as last year, but much more bearable because it's not last year. And the May weather was mostly been spectacular. A few hot and muggies, but lots of blue sky, warm breeze days. Perfect for walking around and looking at the flowers, which are more brilliant this year than I remember them.
But that was then, and this is now. Cold, dreary, wet. Only the heartiest of tourists and suburbanites are out walking around.
Of course, the most exciting thing, walk-wise, has been the return of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, which sits just up the hill from where I live, on the edge of the Boston Common, just opposite the State House.
Removed last May for restoration, it was actually brought back in March. They've just been keeping it under wraps. On Friday, they unveiled it, commemorating the day in 1863 when one of the first all-Black (enlisted men, anyway) regiments in the Union Army to see major combat marched down Beacon Hill and off to war. The Massachusetts 54th Regiment was lead by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who was white. (Two of Frederick Douglass's sons served in this regiment.)
Shaw was from a wealthy Brahmin family, his parents abolitionists. He was a Harvard man - although he left without graduating. And if you think "Colonel" sounds like someone who's old, Shaw was only 25 when he he was killed leading his men on an assault on Fort Wagner. The 54th suffered casualties of almost 50%. And if the assault was a failure, the battle was deemed glorious. (The movie Glory is based on the story of the 54th Regiment.)
The bronze bas-relief that depicts the soldiers heading off to war was the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. It is lovely, a true work of art. I've missed seeing it when I walk by.
I wasn't around for Friday's unveiling. I was out in Worcester, planting flowers on the graves of my parents (sun-patiens, a variety of impatiens that does well in the sun) and my sister (begonias).
But yesterday I walked by and gave the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial a salute.
Memorial Day was begun to honor those who fought and died in the Civil War. Fitting that the monument is back in place for the celebration of this holiday.
And, yes, the flags are out in their full glory on Boston Common.
I don't know that the words of the Roman poet Horace are necessarily always true. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. (It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.) There are plenty of bad causes that soldiers have died for. But the Civil War - so bloody, so ghastly - was, for the Union soldiers, a righteous one. The cynical may discount the role it played, but ending slavery was a noble purpose. And if we're still fighting that war today - and regrettably we are - then shame on us.
Lots to think about on this Memorial Day. There always is.
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Here's my original, 2007 Memorial Day post.
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