Memories around Memorial Day

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                Usually, I forget when a holiday is imminent, but this week I didn’t. Memorial Day.

Already church music folks have figured in absences, planning anthems with fewer voices. Head ushers are calling around finding substitutes for the regulars who’ve said they’d be elsewhere.

Ministers eschew asking the youth directors to do the children’s sermon, not knowing if any children will be in the service.

Schools are always out on that Monday. Campgrounds have been reserved for months. Maybe even a year or two. Cemetery boards meet, Decoration Day’s planned, flags are flown. Memorial Day.

Online sites are plentiful enough for anyone who wants to know the history of the federal holiday. Some bemoan the fact that the 3-day weekend distracts from the original meaning. Others lament that it has become a day to honor all dead instead of those “who died in service to our country.”

It is those which I wish to honor today. The following folks who died during this past year gave their all in some sort of service to their country. From my journals, these names:

ROYCE LYNN MCSPADDEN – a college colleague, United Methodist minister, builder of dulcimers. Dulcimers which will keep the rural heritage of our country alive by present-day musicians. I, too, have one of Lynn’s dulcimers, which I used in units on Folk Music.

ARTHUR RALPH HELMICH – A neighbor in the Salem community of Benton. He had many siblings, but to a young teen, he and his twin brother, AUGUST, were the handsomest two fellows I’d ever seen. His obit says, “He was a gentle soul, a giving, inventive, industrious man….” and he was a veteran.

EMMA JEAN HUTSON – the sister of a Clinton writer friend. I visited once at her home in Choctaw. She fits into the traditional remembrance of Memorial Day because she served doughnuts to the soldiers before they shipped out from their Army Base in California.

JACK “Jackie” DAVIS – another neighbor whose family also had many children (like the Couches and the Helmiches), and whose home place is now the Pine Forest subdivision on Congo Road. Jack served as a UAF student body president, and later, on the board of Camp Aldersgate in Little Rock. “Jack’s service… will always be remembered by his kind heart and warm smile. His passion will live on through the service of those who knew him.” (from a memorial, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

MELVIN WILKINS – a Bryant man who epitomizes the life of a serviceman. First, as a soldier in the European Theater of Operations, then as an employee of Reynolds Metals Company in the instrument department. After retirement, he served his community helping folks through the SCJOHN organization.

IRVIN BROWN—a brother to long-time Salem neighbor Noel Brown. Irvin told me once that my mother taught him in the Avilla school. Avilla was also his birthplace and is still an active community.

JEANETTA TINER—the mother of one of my daughters-in-law, Lisa. In her funeral sermon, she was highly extolled as a servant of her family, her community and her church.

Folks in my extended family who DID serve in the military and who have died are WATHENA SCOTT BARD, J. A. BARD, GERALD “Bud” SCOTT, ROLLA SCOTT, DAVID PELTON, JAMES “Jimmy” PELTON, RAYMOND PELTON, JOHNPELTON, SR., HOLMES AND STEVE ASTON, and PAUL L. SCOTT (FBI).

Others who served, who are still among us are JOE PELTON, JOHN PELTON, JERRY PELTON, SCOTT PELTON, THURMAN COUCH, and NORVAL ZIEGLER.

I might have forgotten a cousin or two, but I’ll add them next week. WW II veterans are dying by the dozens—daily.

Remember those who served this Memorial Day.