In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row.

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row.” John McCrae

Wasn’t that a great Memorial Day weekend we just had? I can’t remember when the weather was quite as enjoyable, as May slipped into June. Now those of you who know what a lousy memory I have may comment that you’re not surprised I can’t remember, since I barely can recall what I had for dinner yesterday let alone what the weather has been like on a certain weekend of any year. But the truth is that I have a special mnemonic device that keeps this weekend fresh in my mind through the years - muscle memory.

Every year since I don’t know when, my family has celebrated Memorial Day with a handful of rituals. Sure, we have a picnic and a gathering at the old homestead on Chautauqua Lake, and we even gather on Monday morning to watch the Bemus Point Memorial Day parade (don’t blink or you’ll miss it!), but there are a couple of other rituals that are less anticipated: taking down the storm windows and putting in the dock.

The less said about the storm windows, the better, except to mention that the process involves balancing on a shaky old ladder, manhandling crumbling old storm windows the size of a sports car, and enduring the sensation experienced when your life flashes before your eyes 14 times in one day. But this isn’t the real killer; that experience is reserved for putting in the dock.

Living on the lake requires having a dock. It’s as American as apple pie, and few places are more pleasant at the end of a long summer day than one-third of a football field stretching out over the water. However, like sausage making, the installation of the dock is a sight best left unseen. First of all, the sections of the dock are all back-breakingly heavy, the lakeshore is foot-breakingly rocky, and the water in late May is inevitably a spirit-breaking few degrees above freezing. I promise myself three things after I help complete the task each year: that before next year I will buy a wetsuit, hand off the really brutal jobs to the next generation, and plan to take out the dock in the fall in a systematic and easily replicated fashion. Then the pages of the calendar turn, another May rolls around and I find myself doing the heavy lifting, unable to figure out which section goes next and feeling numb from my chest down as my leaky waders slosh with icy water. Maybe this is just the inevitability of the human experience, but so often this is what first comes to mind when I think of Memorial Day.

But in the last 20 years or so, my point of view has broadened beyond my own narrow definitions. As a youth, I was growing up in a country struggling with a very unpopular war and that seemed to have no idea how to reconcile that with the sacrifice young men and women were making far overseas in our name. As I watched the Memorial Day parade in my 20’s, I admit that I didn’t connect the men at the front of the procession in their once well-fitted uniforms with their compatriots’ sacrifice through the years. I was the son of a World War II veteran and the friend and relative of several others who served in Korea and Viet Nam, but by the fortune of time, I did not face the option of national service myself. But as I grew older, the realization strengthened in me that they occupied a strata of humankind that deserved my highest level of respect. Whether or not you agreed with the reason a conflict started or intensified, the sacrifice others made for each of us was undeniable. Perhaps the fact that most cemented my growing respect for these individuals was that I was named after my mother’s cousin, who died in the service during World War II and is buried in France. In some small way he lives in me, and I am proud to bear witness to his legacy.

So when that parade comes my way each year, I stand and I applaud the folks up front, and I forget my aches and pains and disappointments and frustrations, and I say a quiet thanks for my cousin and all his fellow soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.