Dear Editor:

On Memorial Day this year, my wife Rachel, our daughter Eliza, and her almost 1-year-old son Henry made our way between the Methodist Church and the War Memorial to watch the parade in East Boothbay. 

While we waited, we talked with Munro Dodge, who does such a nice job of getting the monument and memorial looking so good for this day. He explained that according to tradition, there can only be three red geraniums in front of the monument, and that the flag is to be raised from half staff to full at exactly noon, regardless if the parade has made it there or not.

We also reminisced with Tim Hodgdon about us village kids marching in the parade when we were in grammar school under the watchful eye of Hope Updegraff. We would throw flowers off the bridge in the village and then march down School Street and onto Green Landing Road to decorate the graves at the cemetery. Our last stop was Doug and Stella Hodgdon's store for an ice cream treat. Those traditions are sadly long lost.

Soon the parade made its way past us down the hill and everybody stood at attention, applauding our men and women veterans. As they arrived in front of the memorial, they stopped and turned ninety degrees to face it. As readings were said, I looked down at my grandson Henry and then at the honor roll on the memorial that bears Henry's namesake, my uncle George Henry Jones Jr. Then I looked in the distance at the house on Lincoln Street where, on a fateful December day in 1944, my grandparents George and Eleanor Jones received the terrible news that they had lost their eldest son, George Henry. He had died in a plane crash while training off the coast of Brazil while serving in the Navy.

I was somewhat overwhelmed with emotion as I thought about how devastating the news must have been for them and for their other three sons, William, James and Neil. James, or Ervin as most people knew him, was my father. William (Billy) was too valuable as a welder working in the shipyards in South Portland to be let go into the service. Ervin served in the Navy at peace time between World War II and Korea, and Neil served in Korea in the thick of things. These four men all served their country proudly, with one making the ultimate sacrifice.

We must never forget our veterans, who serve so that children like my grandson Henry can wave a flag and watch a parade on a morning in May.  

Jim Jones 

East Boothbay