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Flags on graves always make me cry
it was the 3rd year in Smallville that Bobby and i began to make Memorial Day memories
we were newcomers...a title we would hold for 16 years...from the day we came til the day we left
since we were under 50...we were a prime age to be asked to do favors for oldsters in town who just couldn't do them anymore
so when the American Legion didn't have anyone to put the little American flags on the gravesites of the soldiers buried there we were asked
it was a busy weekend for me...my friend and my little cable radio station were doing our 1st 24 hour "Grateful Dead Concert" which of course included requests...we figured it would put us on the map and cultivate entree to 3 or 4 other little towns around to want to carry our station
little did we know that it was our willingness to put up the flags that would really win the heart of Smallville's folks
the cemetery was a big windswept place with the only pine trees in town...they were left behind by the lumberman of old who had cut down every other pine tree many years before when it was a logging town...it had an erry feeling when the wind whispered thru the pines
that year was the first year i'd ever spent any time there...putting up flags as i read the gravestones...beloved husband..beloved wife...beloved child....
many of the soldiers were Civil War veterans
some Confederate...some Union...
in a small barely marked area was a group of graves simply marked "BABIES"...a few had dates...1918..1919...1920...about 10 babies were there..no names...just the title "babies"
no one came to visit them..no loving flowers were strew in the mustard colored grass
i got worried about those babies...no one left to care...so i asked Darla at Country Flowers about them
(she was part of one of the 5 generational families that lived in Smallville and knew all the history from the time the town was platted in 1869)
they were "Flu Babies" she told me...babies who died either before or after birth due to the Spanish Flu..she was sweet about my concern and loaded me up with free flowers to put on their graves..a chore i would do for the next 12 years
now that i'm gone others do it
Memorial weekend was always a big day for Smallville too...so many family members living elsewhere came to stay with relatives to place flowers on passed family members graves
and there was a HUGE Motorcycle Ralley just West of town..with bikers traveling from everywhere in Oregon to attend...they always stopped to visit and eat and hoist a few in Smallville
then they'd drop by the Radio Station..request a few songs..have a beer and listen to live music..our station KGAB had live music every year
we'd get an ear full of their tales of other places they'd been in the previous year...then we'd have them tell their stories on the radio...they loved that...we'd record them and give them a copy
they were such nice people...even the HOG riders...hahahahahahaha...most were professionals and rode Ducati's and Moto Guzzi's and such
one of the nicest was a lawyer who became such a good friend of the station he tried to help us weed thru the process of winning a low power FM tower in Smallville..and he did it for just about all we could afford....free
our GRATEFUL DEAD albums songs blared out of every business in town
and all the tiny flags waved in the cemetery as mournful became thoughtful and then celebratory as this high desert wheatland town of 1000 people had for another year sustained it's place in the cosmos
and taken 2 outlanders to their loving breast and acknowledged them as well
Flags on graves always make me cry
it was the 3rd year in Smallville that Bobby and i began to make Memorial Day memories
we were newcomers...a title we would hold for 16 years...from the day we came til the day we left
since we were under 50...we were a prime age to be asked to do favors for oldsters in town who just couldn't do them anymore
so when the American Legion didn't have anyone to put the little American flags on the gravesites of the soldiers buried there we were asked
it was a busy weekend for me...my friend and my little cable radio station were doing our 1st 24 hour "Grateful Dead Concert" which of course included requests...we figured it would put us on the map and cultivate entree to 3 or 4 other little towns around to want to carry our station
little did we know that it was our willingness to put up the flags that would really win the heart of Smallville's folks
the cemetery was a big windswept place with the only pine trees in town...they were left behind by the lumberman of old who had cut down every other pine tree many years before when it was a logging town...it had an erry feeling when the wind whispered thru the pines
that year was the first year i'd ever spent any time there...putting up flags as i read the gravestones...beloved husband..beloved wife...beloved child....
many of the soldiers were Civil War veterans
some Confederate...some Union...
in a small barely marked area was a group of graves simply marked "BABIES"...a few had dates...1918..1919...1920...about 10 babies were there..no names...just the title "babies"
no one came to visit them..no loving flowers were strew in the mustard colored grass
i got worried about those babies...no one left to care...so i asked Darla at Country Flowers about them
(she was part of one of the 5 generational families that lived in Smallville and knew all the history from the time the town was platted in 1869)
they were "Flu Babies" she told me...babies who died either before or after birth due to the Spanish Flu..she was sweet about my concern and loaded me up with free flowers to put on their graves..a chore i would do for the next 12 years
now that i'm gone others do it
Memorial weekend was always a big day for Smallville too...so many family members living elsewhere came to stay with relatives to place flowers on passed family members graves
and there was a HUGE Motorcycle Ralley just West of town..with bikers traveling from everywhere in Oregon to attend...they always stopped to visit and eat and hoist a few in Smallville
then they'd drop by the Radio Station..request a few songs..have a beer and listen to live music..our station KGAB had live music every year
we'd get an ear full of their tales of other places they'd been in the previous year...then we'd have them tell their stories on the radio...they loved that...we'd record them and give them a copy
they were such nice people...even the HOG riders...hahahahahahaha...most were professionals and rode Ducati's and Moto Guzzi's and such
one of the nicest was a lawyer who became such a good friend of the station he tried to help us weed thru the process of winning a low power FM tower in Smallville..and he did it for just about all we could afford....free
our GRATEFUL DEAD albums songs blared out of every business in town
and all the tiny flags waved in the cemetery as mournful became thoughtful and then celebratory as this high desert wheatland town of 1000 people had for another year sustained it's place in the cosmos
and taken 2 outlanders to their loving breast and acknowledged them as well