32 this morning, with heavy frost, and fog in the hollers. Cleared up quickly and was a beautiful day.
We were out early this morning, to be in town in time for the annual Veterans Day parade. It was chilly to start with but we were soon shedding our coats as the day warmed up.
Our county seat does a great job with this parade, with people carrying posters for all veterans whose names were submitted, and then grouping the posters by era. So some people carried names of family members who were WWI vets, and there were even a few WWII vets riding in style. I remember when an old gentleman who was a WWI vet led the parade years ago. He even wore his old uniform.
We did not submit names this year, although we surely have more than our share of vets in the family, with 4 veteran sons, and three grandchildren on active duty right now. And of course my hubby is a Marine Corps vet who served in Vietnam. But someone did submit son Derek's name (Army), and son Aaron (Air Force) drove one of the pageant winners (yes, they have beauty pageants for this who knew??) In his 1972 Mercury Cougar ragtop. Granddaughter Jordan, daughter of our son Jon (Army) sang the national anthem to start the parade. So it was quite the family affair. You can read more about our long history of military service in this post from 2019...just missing granddaughter Beth in that post, who is serving in the Navy.
The drive down Joe's Run this morning was so pretty. I wished I had more time to take pictures instead of shooting on the run.
We found parking easily, and made our way to the parade route a few minutes early.
Here, Jordan and her children stand with the Mayor, watching the parade approach.
And finally back home, where I had a lot of cleaning and sorting to do. But what a nice morning.
Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.
Leaving you with this clip from the local high school's marching band. It's a big band for a small school.
Very foggy and beautiful...it looks like that you had a great day :-)
ReplyDeleteOur families sure are different in this. One of my cousins was one of the first to deny joining the Bundeswehr. But as German you maybe really have a different view on this (#war-guilt).
ReplyDeleteHe made the way for men who instead served in hospitals, as my Brother later then did, also.
And I think this is important, too, and also tough, dealing with death at such a young age.
When in Australia we more than once were there around ANZAC day. Very impressive and sad, beautiful with all the poppies for the fallen.
Ingo did join the Bundeswehr, but I am glad he is way too old to serve. I would be afraid each and every time as in minutes.
It was hard enough when he did service as a firefighter (not professional but voluntarily, yes as a pro).
It was well remembered there. One things Americans do well is the marching bands. It's not a big thing here. Sometimes communities have them, but not high schools as far as I know. When we lived in a border town, we'd have several American bands cross over for our Christmas parade. Our high schools do have bands; our band sits on a track flatbed for a parade.
ReplyDeleteThat's an impressive marching band - pity it was such a short clip.
ReplyDeleteLove the fact that towns still have parades and put such an effort into it. Thank you to your sons, grandsons and husband. My dad was in the Airforce, none of us kids followed in his footsteps. Love your first couple of pictures!
ReplyDeleteI love those misty morning pictures.
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