We tend to treat Veterans Day like Memorial Day and Memorial Day
like the Fourth of July Jr. Yes, there are many Memorial Day
parades and observations, often culminating in ceremonies in
graveyards and cemeteries. But the participants, often as not,
will then head off to the barbecues and pool openings that are
characteristic of Memorial Day’s other identity, which is the
opening day of the American summer. Memorial Day came about in
response to the Civil War, and it sits where it does on the
calendar for a perfectly good reason. It started out as
Decoration Day, a day to honor the brave (Union) war dead by
decorating their graves with flowers — flowers that are most
abundant in late May. Today, we have annuals that will bloom all
summer, but these have been mostly introduced into American
gardens over the last century. Native perennial flowers bloom
mostly in the spring. The first Memorial Day observance took
place in Waterloo, N.Y., on May 5, 1866, one year following the
war’s end. A prominent citizen of Wa