Memorial Day

The Memorial Day Weekend has at long last arrived. For as far as I’m concerned, summer begins here. Oh, I know, school hasn’t let out quite just yet, but since the Everett School system scraped me off of their shoe a long, long, time ago - it’s summer for me anyway.

I don’t know how many times I’ve relived those Memorial Day parades in Everett when we followed the National Guard all the way down Elm Street to the Glenwood Cemetery. Old guys decorated in military insignias, heroic medals, and patriotic emblems, took turns at the podium to commemorate their fallen comrades. We barely heard a single word they said. We were too busy scurrying around in all directions scooping up the spent shells from the traditional twenty-one gun salute.

We were just little kids with little more than a vague idea as to what this was really all about. Memorial Day meant that we got to follow the Yankee Division all the way back to the armory on Chelsea Street for free sandwiches, chips, and a Coke. Never once did I ever think that my dad, and my big brother, would lay to rest amongst the fallen soldiers who so selflessly stepped up to the plate, and faced the ultimate challenge to preserve my way of life.

Some lessons in life cannot be taught. You must experience them first hand to truly understand them. For twenty long years I worked at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett. I thought I knew it all when it comes to losing somebody who means the world to you. I watched it happen every workday of my life. What I didn’t realize was that I was only seeing it from the outside looking in.

Before you showed up to pay your last respects, I jumped down into the hole with pick and shovel to shave the tree roots off the walls, and to level off the bottom of the grave so the casket liner wouldn’t tip to one side. When your motorcade arrived, I was one of the guys who opened the back door of the Hearst to escort your loved one to their place of honor amongst the flowers.

After all was said and done, and you rounded the corner out of view, we set the flowers aside, threw the greens back on the truck, and shoveled the dirt down on top. That was the end of it. There was no more.

I’d see you a few days later standing there in awe of how the grass looked as though it had never been disturbed. Every so often one of you would stop me with a question or two. Sometimes you’d say something like, “I think my dad’s gonna like it here.” I’d smile sympathetically and answer, “I truly hope so. We’ll look after him for you.” And you’d smile back and say, “Oh, I know you will.”

There is a peaceful tranquility about a cemetery that somehow makes you understand that the habit and routine does not continue beyond those wrought iron gates. It does for the gravedigger, but not for the mourner. Understandably so I suppose. After all, it is the gravedigger’s responsibility that you feel at ease with your loved one’s final rest.

Even still, working twenty-years as a gravedigger never prepared me for what I was about to go through when I lost my big brother, Billy. That tore a great big hole in my heart. That’s when I found out that I wasn’t so big and tough after all.

It was neither the wake nor the funeral that took its toll on me. What really got to me was when I actually saw his name cut into that little white military gravestone amongst all the other Veterans at the Glenwood Cemetery. That’s when I truly realized that my big brother was gone.

I still don’t know what came over me, but I just had to reach out and touch his name. I had no questions for the gravedigger. There was nothing he could tell me that I didn’t already know. What I wasn’t prepared for was how hard those tears would flow.

That was nineteen years ago. How time does fly. The tears don’t flow as hard or as often as they used to, but they do still flow from time to time. How could they not? I followed in that kid’s footsteps since I first hopped up over the crib rails.

So as I sit here reminiscing about my big brother I’ve got this image of him in my mind’s eye looking back at me, smirking, and saying, “What a banana head.” That’s what he always called me when I screwed something up. And from his point of view, I screwed everything up.

Like the time he promised to take me down the beach for a plate of fried clams. He was only about sixteen himself, which would make me about ten. Before heading off to the beach he pulled into the Stop & Shop parking lot in Glendale Square and told me to be the lookout, for God only knows what. Next thing you know he whips out a hose and starts sucking the gas out of some strangers car to pump into his.

Some guy comes storming out of the Shop & Shop, yelling and waiving his hands like a lunatic, and I had no idea as to what was really going on. So all of a sudden we leap back into my brother’s car and leave rubber. Billy then squealed up and down the back streets of the projects trying to lose this guy, which he eventually does. Then he gets all hot and bothered at me because I was supposed to be the lookout. I was only ten years old for gawd’s sake.

This is the same big brother who lowered me down into the canteen trailers at the Flying A gas station on Ferry Street by my shirt collar. Those were the concession trailers they stocked with food for the EHS football games. I was only eight years old. My job was to pass all of the hot dogs and hamburgers I could find up through the skylight to the bigger kids up above.

Needless to say, that was the same big brother who was nowhere to be found when the cops pulled me up out of that trailer by the scruff of my neck. And yes, he called me a banana head then, too, because it was supposedly my fault that I got caught. So who was supposed to be the lookout then? And how come it wasn’t the lookout’s fault this time?

And then there was that summer night when Billy and all of his friends who hung out on our front steps decided to go down to Manny’s on Ferry Street for an ice cream cone. No one bothered to tell me that this was going to be a massive chew-and-screw. I had to find that out for myself the hard way.

As soon as everybody got their ice cream cone they took off running down Ferry Street. I thought my heart was going to pound through my chest that night. Just try to digest your food while your hearts pounding like a bass drum. It’s almost impossible. Funny thing is - I did it just the same.

My big brother taught me how to torture an ant unmercifully using only the blaring hot sun and a broken piece of glass. He also taught me how to make a flame-thrower out of a cigarette lighter and a can of hairspray. My mother could never figure out what was happening to all of her hairspray. It didn’t make any sense.

He also taught me how to make a matchstick shooter out of clothespins. And because of him I found out how much fun you could have playing with wooden stick matches. You could light em on the wall. You could light em on the grass. I once knew a girl who could light em on her … Well, you get the idea, I'm sure.

That new found knowledge enabled me to eventually set fire to all of the back porches on our six-family house. So now you know why people often said that if I had a brain I’d be dangerous.

You know what else he taught me? He taught me how to pull a bottle of Coke out of those old fashioned dispensers that had the flip-open door where the tops of the bottles stuck out at you. They had those down at Spencer’s Gas Station on Ferry Street. He found a way to reach in behind the mechanism with a bent wire coat hanger to release the bottle. It worked every time.

Billy also taught me how to steal girly magazines down at Sam’s Spa at the corner of Ferry and Chelsea. It was really rather elementary actually. All you had to do was go to the back of the store where Sam sold three comic books with the covers ripped off for a nickel. On the shelf above that were the girly magazines with the covers ripped off.

You couldn’t stick the girly magazine in the middle of the comic books because Sam always flipped through your pile before you bought it. So you had to wait until he was busy with another customer while you were still thumbing through the comic books. The timing had to be perfect.

As soon as his attention was diverted, that magazine had to go flawlessly right down into the front of your pants. Now there’s a useful skill to add to your repertoire when you’re only in the second grade. Hey, you’re not gonna see the real deal for at least another ten years and when you do you don’t want to come across like a rank amateur. You know what I mean?

Funny thing is, the girly magazines back then didn’t really show as much as they do on the regular TV channels today. If I was a little kid nower days I’d be traumatized by some of the things they show on TV. Compared to what they show on TV today, the girly magazines of yesteryear would be rated PG by today’s standards.

Okay, so I’m sure I’ve told you about the time that Billy and Pat Hughes picked me up and threw me over the Everett Stadium fence. I was too little to hop over the fence like the bigger kids, and since Billy promised my mom that he’d look after me, he had to get me into the game – right?

God forbid that he should fork over a half a buck to walk me through the gate like a civilized human being. He’d never live it down if his friends ever found out that he paid to get into a game. That’s just not the way it’s done in Everett.

So I come flying ass over teakettle into the stadium and land in the mud on my face while the cops are chasing kids all over the place. When I finally do catch up to Billy and Pat in the bleachers they want to know why I’m covered with mud from head to toe. Then Billy calls me a banana head for landing in the mud. I can’t win.

Ah, but there were times I really appreciated having a big brother like Billy. Like the time when he caught me down the cellar trying to knock the pedals off my tricycle with a ball-peen hammer. When I explained that they were getting in the way of trying to coast full speed down Arlington Street, he took it upon himself to teach me how to ride a two-wheeler, just like the big kids do.

He took me to the top of Arlington Street and sat me up on the bike. Then he told me that it was no different than a tricycle. “You just peddle and steer like you usually do. It’s no big deal.” Then he shoved me off into the open universe.

Seconds later I careened off of two or three parked cars before crashing into Martha’s fence. So he called me a banana head, sat me back up on the bike, and told me to quit acting stupid.

So here I go again, flying down Arlington Street at break neck speed, and I can hear him in the background yelling, “Don’t forget to pedal!”

Don’t forget to pedal? Is he serious? I’m already 3G’s over the speed of light and he’s telling me to pedal. Gimmie a break.

This thing is nothing at all like my tricycle. It goes faster than I can think and it doesn’t stop. Lucky for me, Arlington Street never had a shortage of parked cars. Yeah, it hurts like hell to stop, but it sure beats getting run over by the trolley on Ferry Street.

So for the last time he picked me up and sat me back on the bike. Then he says, “Don’t be a banana head all your life. Just pedal and steer like you’re supposed to. Stop being afraid of your own shadow. You don’t want to go to kindergarten in the fall still riding a tricycle, do ya? Everyone will think you’re a sissy.”

Well, that did it. The last thing you want is for anyone to think you’re a sissy, especially if you come from Everett. Everett doesn’t breed sissies. Sissies come from Malden. Heck, everybody knows that.

And so for the last time I get back up on that bike without anyone’s help. I’m ignoring how much that big scrape on my knee hurts. As they say, “No pain – no gain.” This time when Billy launched me into outer space I started pedaling like a wild banshee. I’m staring death in the face with a growl on my kisser. Nobody’s gonna break my stride, and nobody’s gonna slow me down.

What I didn’t realize is that to ride the length of Arlington Street on a two-wheeler takes only about ten seconds flat. By the eleventh second you’re flying through the middle of the traffic on Ferry Street. Cars honk their horns at you, and drivers yell indiscriminately out the window at you.

By the thirteenth second I’ve zoomed past the Hamilton School. I’m up and over the hump at Chatham Road four seconds later. I’ve got the handle on this thing by the time I reached “Our Lady of Grace.” Less than thirty seconds from launch I’m coasting into that little park in Prattville and come to a graceful stop at a park bench. My life was never the same again.

I can’t count how many times this kid came through for me. I’ve called him umpteen times in the middle of the night when I locked my keys in my car while I was out on a date. And yes, he came through for me every time. And yes, he called me a banana head.

If there was ever a time when I missed him as much as I do right now, it was when he left home for his tour of duty in Vietnam. I feared the unthinkable. I didn’t dare say it.

Below is the photograph I took with my mother’s double reflex Argus Camera just before driving him off to the airport to report for duty. My mother didn’t have the strength to see him off at the airport that day. She just couldn’t bare the pain. So my dad and I took him to the airport to see him off.



I remember it so vividly now. I’m watching him sling that that duffel bag over his shoulder, and looking back at me to say, "No matter what happens, you be strong for Ma. And don't be afraid. I'll be back, you banana head."

He did come back home to us just like he promised. Twenty years later he faced yet another adversary that would take its toll, and we’d lose him forever.

In that photograph you’re seeing my dad, and my big brother. They were more than just father and son. They were the best of friends. They both served in the Army during wartime. And they both paid the price for my freedom.

If not for my dad I wouldn’t even be here. If not for my big brother I’d not be half the man that I am today. So you’re looking at the two biggest heroes in my life. They have both gone beyond the far horizon. They leave behind a legacy that guides my journey forward. I am because they were.

I will honor them this Memorial Day. I’ll spend a thoughtful moment with them. I’ll shed a tear or two. It’s bound to happen. And I’ll thank my lucky stars that they came into my life bearing their own special gifts that added a unique quality and depth to my character.

That’s what we do on Memorial Day. We spend a special moment with those who have enriched our lives before journeying beyond the far horizon. And there are so very many for us because we belong to a lifelong fraternity of family and friends. We belong together because – “We’re From Everett!”
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