Remembering

          Growing up in Vanceburg, Kentucky, Decoration Day--as I heard it called then--was as much a day of family gatherings as it was for honoring the dead. Children never regarded Woodland Cemetery-- or Cemetery Hill--with any dread. Our ancestors were buried there, ancestors we learned and relearned about with each trip up the hill.

           My family bought our plot after my father was killed in the Korean War.Too soon thereafter, my grandfather, Rival Pugh, died--only in his 50s. Heart attack or heart break, my grandmother, Hame always said. These were the last plots in this part of the cemetery, the part where my paternal relatives were buried since the 1800's. When I was young, I took comfort in thinking they were all up there together.


           Memorial Day, as it is more generally called today, was known as Decoration Day when I was young, and adults knew well the holiday's purpose.  I did know that members of the family had fought in every war from the Revolution through the CivilWar (for the North and the South), as well as in both World Wars. It was something we leaned in passing, but war was never glamorized. Most children my age knew about war in an abstract way as our fathers were World War II vets. As kids, we even played war. How could we begin to take in the seriousness of any of this then?

          To me, Decoration Day was a holiday when we all went to Aunt Doris and Uncle Sam Johnson's who lived on Third Street, in the original family home. It was to this home that all came bearing covered dishes, desserts, and armfuls of flowers in a bucket. People came from Huntington, Charleston, Cincinnati, Ashland and points east and west.  Shortly after the foods were put aside, the motorcade to the cemetery commenced.



          Making our way a few miles up Route 10, the procession turned left and slowly wound its way up the hill, the place where Lewis County's founders had placed their cemetery.  Our family's resting places were on the very top, overlooking my home town, Vanceburg, which lay below, nestled between a bend in the Ohio River and the foothills of the Appalachians.  So stunningly beautiful in
May.  Serviceberry trees--their white blooms long gone--Redbud with its dark bark and heart-shaped leaves, parasol-shaped Dogwood foliage, majestic Oak and Maple, smooth-barked Beech, Sweet Gum with its broad leaves, Catalpas dripping their pods--we were wrapped in a comforting velveteen green that made hot days seem cool. The initial goal? Decorating graves.




      There was little sad about this to us children.  It was simply something we did. Running to the shed, we'd push and shove, vying to be the first to grab the handle of the green metal pump. Up and down. Up and down. The spout shot icy spring water into our metal buckets, which when full, we grabbed up and hauled back to the grave sites.  As we raced one another--water sloshing everywhere, half onto the ground, on our clothes and into our shoes, we only stopped when some adult said, "Slow down!" The men stood about, leaning on car hoods, smoking and laughing, egging on children and teasing their wives. Women arranged iris, roses, hydrangea, and whatever was blooming into coffee and Crisco cans, submerging the makeshift containers into a bit of soil just beneath the headstones.



          As adults worked and talked, we kids ran irreverently around the cemetery, admiring the elaborate markers on the oldest graves, then detouring to the outer perimeter to see where a distant cousin had buried his dog. He'd tried to have the dog buried near his parents. (Evidently, it was quite a dust up in the family.) In time, we'd dare one another to lie down in the oval bed-shaped markers topped with a cushy ground cover until some adult turned around and shouted, "Get out of Mr. James and Miss Olevia's graves. Right this minute!" And giggling, we'd comply.


         As many of the women--aunts, great-aunts, mothers, grandmothers, cousins--cleared up the detritus, our great-uncle, June Moore, took me--and whoever else was interested--around to each family grave and told us who they were and in what way we were related to them, stories I later shared with my own children. Often, Hame added her own perfunctory remarks in a series of non-sequiturs. "If this hill shifts much, Bess will slide on top of me one day." Or, "Look how far apart Mr.So-and-so is from Mrs. So-and-so are," and then she'd grin, with a meaning that I did not then get.


          Later that afternoon, back at the Johnson's, everyone sat around on walls, swings, porches, or in chairs, drinking cool drinks and feasting on country ham, fried chicken, green beans, cucumbers and onions in vinegar, beaten biscuits and yeast rolls. Throughout the afternoon, people wandered into the dining room to choose a dessert from a table full of pies and cakes. At some point, when we kids started to wreak a little havoc by pushing one another into the fish pond or locking another in the play house,  Uncle Sam distracted us kids with stories about cowboys he'd known, cowboys who'd defeated assorted bad guys with elaborate schemes. I was sure all of these stories were true.  He'd take a stick, draw in the dirt, and say, "Now I was up here with Wild Bill and Quick Draw Dan..." at which point he drew hills in the dirt with a stick. "And then we saw the Parson Gang," and he'd draw exes below, marking their location. He was very convincing. It took me years to realize none of these were true.  Sam Johnson was a mesmerizing story teller.


          After my grandmother and her generation died, my mother and step-father made this trip with us as did I with my children until I left Kentucky.  It's been over a decade or more since I thought about this, but I recently heard from my cousins after they'd been to the cemetery on Memorial Day.  A friend then messaged that he'd seen the beautiful flowers on the graves, and all these memories came flooding back.  Hame's up there now, as are Uncle Sam and Aunt Doris, and so many others.  Time passes.


          But when you celebrate Memorial Day next year, don't forget to share your childhood memories with the next generations. It is these memories that give all a sense of self, a love of place, and belief and understanding of purpose. Remember.