The Craftiest Workshop

This November 11 will be different. There won’t be huge gatherings of people in any communities in Canada or around the world. In many places wreaths won’t be laid by individuals or groups at cenotaphs and the traditional 2 minutes of silence will have to be done from the comfort of your own home.

I was thinking back to my earliest memories of Remembrance Day. It was most likely an elementary school service in the school gym. We would all draw pictures or write a poem for the Legion contest and those entries would hang on the walls of the gymnasium. A man who lived next door to the school was a veteran and he would come every year to the service to speak to us. I recall him playing “Last Night I had the Strangest Dream” written by Ed McCurdy on a cassette player. Here is a version by John Denver. He recites a poem about Peace before singing the song. The Honour Roll would be recited by a student and someone would read “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae. We would watch some war related movie played on a dual reel movie projector on a pull down screen.

When I joined air cadets, I got more involved in Remembrance Day. On weekends leading up to Remembrance Day, I would stand outside the post office or grocery store offering poppies to people. We would march in the town parade to the cenotaph and lay a wreath.

The majority of the years since high school, I have observed Remembrance Day as a parent with my kids at school, with their church group and with their army cadet unit. I have observed Remembrance Day as a military wife, some years with my husband away and others with him on parade in front of me.

In all those years observing Remembrance Day some things stand out in my memory.

• The proud veteran who came to all our elementary school services.
• Standing in front of my cadet squadron and leading them on the march past of the cenotaph
• The year I attended a service in Orleans when Chris was away and my kids were the only small children there
• The time my kids in their brand new snowsuits got sprayed with grease from the tanks going by when we lived near Edmonton
• Singing at a local service with my women’s choir
• Seeing my kids holding rifles at the cenotaph in Brighton during the overnight vigil
• Having to leave a school service with a child with special needs because the bag pipes playing the lament were too loud
• Chris’s speech when he was the Reviewing Officer for a Nov. 11 parade in Fort Mac

It’s the little things you recall which make you remember the important message of Remembrance Day. I can recite “In Flanders Fields” because of all those school services. I can recall many names from my town’s honour roll having heard it year after year at the cenotaph. I can hum the Last Post and lament having heard trumpeters and bagpipers play it year after year. If you have children, observe Remembrance Day in some way. Create an important memory.

Idea for Remembrance

I was visiting my hometown and decided to take a picture of the guns that have always been mounted near the cenotaph. When I showed a war historian friend of ours the picture, he wondered how a set of German machine guns ended up in a small town in Saskatchewan. Did you know that there are war memorials all over Canada? Some communities even have war trophies that were gifted to them after World War 1. Check out this website Memorials in Canada and you can enter the province and town(under municipality) to find out what memorials are there. Click on the individual memorial number to learn more about it. My hometown actually has 4 listed. Ottawa has 507, Edmonton 86, Saskatoon 52 and Trenton 39….all some of the areas where our family has lived. Maybe you can visit a memorial site sometime on November 11 and pay tribute the people the memorial was erected for.

Song for Reflection

Chris and I are fans of John McDermott. He has a song on his Danny Boy album released in 1998 called “Christmas in the Trenches” about Christmas during the war. The original songwriter does not sing it as well but the background story he tells is worth a listen Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon.

Interesting Read

If you haven’t seen the post circulating on facebook about how Monopoly was used during WWII you should check it out. I learned something new and interesting.

It is easier for people in military families to remember because military sacrifice is part of your daily life but it is everyone’s duty to remember. Whatever you decide to do this Remembrance Day just make sure it is memorable for you and your family: attend a service, watch a movie, read a book or just check out the links in my post. In order to keep remembering, you have to create memories that help you to remember.