If you’re a man, you can wear it on your lapel. If you’re a woman, you can twist it around your purse strap. But the important thing is to make your poppy visible, so that the next time you run in for a gallon of milk, the volunteers will nod and smile encouragingly, but they won’t trouble you for another donation.
If you happened to pay a May visit to Grandma Johnston, who lost her cherished brother in WWII—and whose own husband pulled through the Battle of the Bulge with tremendous injuries—the first thing she would chirp is, “Where’s your poppy?” If you didn’t have one, you’d better find a member of the VFW auxiliary fast.
The Midwestern Memorial Day itself usually starts with damp and fog. The townspeople manage to wipe the sleep from their eyes and attend the local parade of various units of veterans and the members of the National Guard. Some look very sharp in their uniforms, with everything in tip-top order. Others are less organized and do their best to squeeze into their dress uniform, which can’t accommodate their civilian weight gain. But, they can’t be judged too harshly. They’ve done their duty, and they continue to do their duty to those who served before them.
The Cub Scouts, Girls Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Brownies tag along, with the high school band not far behind. It isn’t a long parade, and ends at the cemetery, where a wreath is laid. and the first-chair trumpeter plays taps. One of the old-timers, not used to public speaking, will make remarks that are humble, but do not speak directly to his personal sacrifice, but the sacrifice of those who didn’t make it home.
After a prayer and tears, there is a 21-gun salute, and before the powder clears, the children are on their bellies scrambling for the precious shells. The band will play again, and that is Memorial Day. It is a time for people to come together and remember.
In the past fifteen years as a resident of New York City, I’ve only had the privilege to buy two poppies. One was from a WWII veteran at Grand Central Station. From what I could tell, he was by himself, and he didn’t have any backup. I’ve gone back to look for him when the time seems right, and he—or others like him—are not there.
The second one was from a Ukrainian-born US veteran, who had a little table at a street fair. To be fair, I know that there aren’t as many WWII veterans about as there once were, but poppies still manage to be in evidence in the Midwest, albeit from younger volunteers, and ones affected by our most recent foreign wars.
Finding something that resembles a Memorial Day commemoration in New York City is a challenge. Staten Island, Queens, and Brooklyn all sponsor popular parades. Today in Manhattan there will be a small ceremony at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Riverside Park. At 11:00 am, interested parties will meet at Columbus Circle for a walking tour of the war memorials in Central Park. The Intrepid Museum marks the day with celebrations that are “open to the public” (with admission).
Manhattan as a whole seems to be lukewarm, patriotically. There is no Fourth of July parade, and maybe this is because everyone has already left town if not for the weekend, then for the summer. That said, to make up for it, the Veterans Day parade stretches for more than four hours to accommodate more than 25,000 marchers.
But a big blowout in November doesn’t make up for not having more opportunities to mark Memorial Day. There is a small memorial in Central Park just off the Mall, and every year, someone lays red-white-and blue wreaths. Someone remembers. I just wish that I could join them.
Down Under we mark the equivalent of Memorial Day on April 25: ANZAC Day. That is the date of New Zealand’s Australia’s bloodied comming-of-age on the peninsula of Galliopli in WWI. Red poppies abound long before and on the day itself. This year the local traffic roundabout close to where I live was planted in large red poppies for several days. I suspect they were taken away eventually when they were becoming a traffic hazard.
Poppies are worn in Britain for Remembrance Day, which used to be November the Eleventh but is now the Sunday before.
You’ll remember what happened on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
I should add that, inevitably, the poppy used is slightly diffferent in England and in Scotland.
In Australia, also, poppies are sold and worn on 11 November. A minute’s silence is generally observed, but no parades. ANZAC day is the big one for remembering the fallen, with dawn services, memorial marches, two-up (the one day of the year when it is legal) and lots of beer. No poppies, though.
I have long been intrigued by the differences between Australia and New Zealand in honouring their fallen – given our combined ANZAC tradition. Remeberance Day (aka Armistice Day = 11 November) is largely ignored in New Zealand. I was suprised when working in Sydney to see flags lowered to half mast on the eleventh hour at that date as well as poppies being worn by, among others, the security guards in the building in which I was working.
I now note the Australian War Memorial has this comment about the poppy:
“The Flanders poppy has long been a part of Remembrance Day, the ritual that marks the Armistice of 11 November 1918, and is also increasingly being used as part of ANZAC Day observances.”
All strength to Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, “In Flanders fields the poppies grow” … One hopes he knew what he had wrought.
Rosemary. On ANZAC day we wear a sprig of Rosemary.
Remembrance Day is 11th November. Always and forever.
Two minutes of silence is observed all over the country on 11th month, 11th hour, 11th day. Even in public places where announcements are possible.
The Sunday services are just referred to as Remembrance Sunday, always have been.
2011 was 11, 11,11, 11.
Poppies are worn variously through most of November and although paper ones are still sold by volunteers (the proper poppies) of the Royal British Legion, Other companies and organisations now make and sell poppy broaches. Which means you still, if you care, buy a paper one or donate.
The act of remembrance is never “value neutral”.
It’s the same or similar in many countries around the world.