Who Loves a Parade

Had an interesting conversation with a friend who knows his way around local Memorial Day parades. It's his opinion that relatively few people attend Newburyport's Memorial Day parade while others--like Amesbury--draw quite well.

I'll fess up. I didn't go. In fact, I forgot there was a parade until I was driving down Green Street and saw smatterings of folks gathering on either side. So if there is a problem I suppose I'm part of it.

I don't really have a legitimate excuse for not going. We were committed to doing yard work all day, and we did just that. Again, we didn't actively choose not to go. We simply didn't know of the alternative.

Ari Herzog did go, and he reports on his experiences in his blog along with some nice photos. According to his account, he only noticed four city councillors marched in the parade. (My friend had offered a similar observations.)

(Update: Peter McClelland has photographic evidence of a wider councillor showing. I'd be surprised by a massive no-show of councillors. I'm guessing viewing them was just a timing thing.)

I'm happy that friend, neighbor and ward 4 councillor Ed Cameron was one of them, but his appearance doesn't get me off the hook. I voted for him to represent me in city government, not parades.

Honestly, I didn't grow up connecting Memorial Day to honoring our veterans. No one in my immediate family served in the military (although my grandfather did survive the sinking of his commercial vessel, which was torpedoed by a German U-Boat off the shores of New Jersey.) Instead, I spent my day being driven from family gravesite to family gravesite, a experience I don't really practice today. Intellectually, I know the connection exists, but it's not in my core.

So what gives? I have some theories.

* Many of these veteran-centric traditions are fading. Military service doesn't directly impact as many families as it once did. And one could argue it impacts even fewer families in Newburyport, although families in this community certainly have sacrificed.

* The Spring Festival--or whatever the weekend fair was called--keeps the locals away from the downtown. Perhaps people are opting to stay away from the traffic and congestion, so that means they won't attend the parade.

* Folks are just busy all the time, so they don't want to miss any opportunity to work in a yard or visit with friends.

* Lastly, blame the newbies like myself who just aren't up on local customs.

I recognize none of these theories are very strong reasons for not attending, and it's likely the ultimate answer or answers is an amalgamation of all of them.

But I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say. Is there a problem that needs a solution?

Here's the Daily News' slide show.