When a parade is much more than just a parade

by James Norton

For the first time in a very long while, I had the chance to be in the Memorial Day Parade the other day. Aside from the obvious reasons for celebrating this holiday, it was a chance to see old friends and new faces along the route. Locally, this parade has seen its up and its downs—I grew up directly behind the City Hall on School Street and my father and I would kill ourselves laughing every year trying to figure out how long the parade would be compared to the previous year. It wasn’t so much that the parade was pathetic (it was) or even that we began timing it (crass, but true). The real reason it was so damned funny was that there was not one, but two years that the parade was over before we could walk up the hill five houses to the corner of Highland Avenue. I’m talking less than ten minutes to gather ourselves together, get a folding chair and hobble a measly 250 feet up a hill. That’s not funny—it’s sad.

That type of tempo doesn’t give you the warm “Americana” feeling a holiday like Memorial Day should. I’m sure it didn’t give our local veterans and their families a warm feeling either that their own community cared so little for their sacrifices on behalf of our country. This is a holiday to thank those who have served our country, to come together as a community and to share experiences —to learn more about each other and what it means to be an American. I was very happy to hear several weeks ago that Mayor Joe had plans to put on the largest Memorial Day Parade ever in the City of Somerville’s history—this is something we needed as a community. Members of the generation that fought in World War II won’t be with us all that much longer and to honor them as we did the other day was a great testament to our community pride. You know there will be some backlash from the Liberals and the Progressives saying things like “well, we could have laid off one less English teacher this next fiscal year.” There’s the dark underbelly of politics again. Let’s hope they read this piece and not bother to embarrass themselves with this type of crass and petty remark.

Truth be told, city government shouldn’t bear the cost of this type of community service. The burden should be borne by those in the community —especially the business community. There should be more business sponsored programs in the school system, some sort of business sponsored clean-up and maintenance of our parks and the cost of parades and other community-based events should be borne by the business community as a whole. If your business is here, and it thrives because of the location you are placed, then you should give back to the community as best you can without causing financial burden upon your business, period. Why is that so difficult to understand?

Back to my point about the parade—I truly enjoyed being in it (and no, it’s not because Miss Somerville News was sitting above and just behind me). It’s been a long time for me personally that I was able to be involved with or have witnessed a public event that made me proud to be part of this community. Don’t get the wrong idea, I have said in this paper many times before that I am proud of where I am from and I have no intentions on leaving. I am specifically talking about a parade or a public event— where people from all across the city just had to walk down the street to be part of a celebration of our heroes and our own heritage as Americans. Of course the barbeque afterwards with food and drink back at our house wasn’t all that bad either.

To be honest, I like Memorial Day more as a holiday better from a community standpoint than Independence Day—and the reasons are very simple. When Memorial Day comes around on the calendar, our kids are still in school and people haven’t made the mass exodus to their summer vacation spots—I know I’ll be in Falmouth on July 4th, as usual, with at least several dozen other people from Somerville who vacation there during the summer—watching the fireworks with my family and friends and not thinking about much else.