Photo Shoot: Memorial Day photo traditions
Memorial Day weekend on Cape Cod is the unofficial start of the summer tourist season — bookended in September with Labor Day. Memorial Day photo department traditions start on Friday afternoon with an image of arriving traffic over the Sagamore Bridge.
Saturday coverage is the Figawi sailboat race to Nantucket and then a mad dash down to the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne for decoration of all the graves with flags, Memorial Day Monday, a variety of parades and observances across the Cape.
Long before Memorial Day was a three-day weekend, it was called Decoration Day. The name dates back to the 1860s when groups from both North and South would decorate graves of Civil War soldiers. The veterans' group, Grand Army of the Republic, officially established the day in 1868, according to the National Park Service. Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday in 1971 placing its observance on the last Monday of May instead of a fixed day on the 30th.
Through the years I have established several Memorial Day traditions I try to photograph. In the spirit of Decoration Day, students at the Eastham Elementary School annually march a winding route from classrooms to the Evergreen Cemetery off Route 6, clutching handpicked bouquets of lilacs and seasonal flowers to decorate veterans' graves and listen as students plays taps. This tradition has gone on for well over 75 years.
The work is fast, rain or shine, at the National Cemetery in Bourne and after a short time, hundreds of volunteers have placed thousands of flags stretching out to the horizon. It is a breathtaking sight that gives pause to anyone who has seen it. Despite looming mid-day photo deadlines, I always pause at a large black plaque by the visitor center to read through the words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
A look back: Photo Shoot: Ordinary views, extraordinary memories
Back in third or fourth grade we all had to practice our cursive handwriting by copying it and then reading it aloud in class. A teacher chose one student to memorize the famous speech and then recite it for the gathered crowd at the town’s Memorial Day service standing beside the large veterans stone, “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” As the last of Lincoln’s 272-word speech was read, the high school’s best trumpet player sent the long notes of taps across the hilly cemetery.
I rarely handwrite in cursive these days and long ago gave up memorizing the Gettysburg Address, but hope through photography in some small way I have helped to keep Memorial Day traditions alive.
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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: A tradition of Memorial Day photography on Cape Cod
