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Remembrance Day
Nov. 11th, 2005 03:27 pmSince Ross posted In Flanders Fields for me..
When I was 13 or 14, I entered the Fergus Legion's Remembrance Day poetry/prose/art contest. And I won first place. Looking back, the poem wasn't very good (at least, objectively - it was probably quite good for a 14 year old, and I know everything was spelt correctly, I just suspect it was a bit jejune), but then I doubt that the literary merit was the first criterion for the contest.
After I'd won, I wrote out the poem for my Grandfather on some heavy parchment type paper, in bad calligraphy, at his request. To this day, it hangs, framed, among the pictures and mementos of his regiment in what was his study. That, I suspect, is the only extant copy - it isn't in the 1-inch thick folder of incredibly adolescent poetry in my filing cabinet.
Many of you know this, but some of you don't; my Grandfather retired from the Canadian Army Reseves at the rank of Lt. Col. His instructions for after his death involved the plainest grey casket we could find, since under Ontario law it's illegal to bury someone in an army blanket, as they'd done in the war. My Grandmother was a Lt in the Canadian Army Nurses, stationed in Basingstoke England. And so I grew up very concious of the things that this day means. Certainly more than most of the people my age in Fergus, which I imagine was what put me over the top in that poetry contest.
I worked from home today; Pasco county doesn't have school on Veterans Day, so John was with me. This morning I listened to the Ottawa Remembrance Day service, streamed by the CBC. This afternoon, I called my Grandmother (which, apparently, is getting to be something of a tradition, since she told me that she'd been thinking about the fact that I usually call). She volunteers 2 mornings a week at a local school, so for the past 3 years, she's gone into the school to talk to the students who aren't old enough to go to the cenotaph. She told me that today, since they also had a current active soldier who just got off a tour of peacekeeping in to talk about war, she talked about the importance of working together for peace, in their case even on the playground or in the classroom.
Besides being an age-appropriate message, it was also rich with meaning, coming from a woman who saw so much of what comes when attempts to make peace either fail, or are not attempted. As every year we lose more and more men and women who learnt that lesson intimately, those of us who've been taught it second-hand must hold it fast, lest we break faith.
In peace.
When I was 13 or 14, I entered the Fergus Legion's Remembrance Day poetry/prose/art contest. And I won first place. Looking back, the poem wasn't very good (at least, objectively - it was probably quite good for a 14 year old, and I know everything was spelt correctly, I just suspect it was a bit jejune), but then I doubt that the literary merit was the first criterion for the contest.
After I'd won, I wrote out the poem for my Grandfather on some heavy parchment type paper, in bad calligraphy, at his request. To this day, it hangs, framed, among the pictures and mementos of his regiment in what was his study. That, I suspect, is the only extant copy - it isn't in the 1-inch thick folder of incredibly adolescent poetry in my filing cabinet.
Many of you know this, but some of you don't; my Grandfather retired from the Canadian Army Reseves at the rank of Lt. Col. His instructions for after his death involved the plainest grey casket we could find, since under Ontario law it's illegal to bury someone in an army blanket, as they'd done in the war. My Grandmother was a Lt in the Canadian Army Nurses, stationed in Basingstoke England. And so I grew up very concious of the things that this day means. Certainly more than most of the people my age in Fergus, which I imagine was what put me over the top in that poetry contest.
I worked from home today; Pasco county doesn't have school on Veterans Day, so John was with me. This morning I listened to the Ottawa Remembrance Day service, streamed by the CBC. This afternoon, I called my Grandmother (which, apparently, is getting to be something of a tradition, since she told me that she'd been thinking about the fact that I usually call). She volunteers 2 mornings a week at a local school, so for the past 3 years, she's gone into the school to talk to the students who aren't old enough to go to the cenotaph. She told me that today, since they also had a current active soldier who just got off a tour of peacekeeping in to talk about war, she talked about the importance of working together for peace, in their case even on the playground or in the classroom.
Besides being an age-appropriate message, it was also rich with meaning, coming from a woman who saw so much of what comes when attempts to make peace either fail, or are not attempted. As every year we lose more and more men and women who learnt that lesson intimately, those of us who've been taught it second-hand must hold it fast, lest we break faith.
In peace.
