DAN’S PAPERS
June 6, 2014 Page 35
D. Rattiner
danspapers.com
Main Beach dressed for Memorial Day 2014
Waiting for the Wreath Honoring the Soldiers Who Gave Their Lives for Our Country By DAn rAttinEr
L
ast week I decided I needed to get a photograph of the religious leaders and officials of the Town of East Hampton together with uniformed war veterans tossing the Memorial Day wreath into the Atlantic Ocean after the Memorial Day Parade in that town. It was important to me not just because it might be a nice picture for the magazine, but because I needed such a picture to illustrate a chapter in a book I am writing about the Hamptons. The book will be out next spring in hardcover, published by SUNY Press, and is called In the Hamptons Forever. The chapter is about a day when I made a complete fool of myself. On that day, many years ago, I drove down to the end of the road to the town beach pavilion and, shifting over to the passenger seat, sat facing the ocean and writing a story for this magazine. I do not recall what I wrote about that day. But it was a complicated piece and it took several hours during which time I was totally absorbed in it. Then, at the most climactic moment in the story, I heard the sounds of a marching band. I looked out the window and saw all these officials in colorful uniforms and then a band walking by my car and down the
sand to the beach. At the beach, there was a drum roll and then the band played “The Star Spangled Banner.” Everyone at the beach at that time stopped what they were doing and stood at attention with their hand over their heart. So I got out of the car and did the same. I had no idea what was going on. But as the song ended, I saw something being thrown into the ocean, then everybody relaxed, and so I got back into the car and back to work. Later, when I got home, I told my wife about it. She informed me it was Memorial Day. “Oh,” I said. Well, that was then and this was now. And I never did take a picture of anyone throwing a wreath into the ocean, then or any other time. “Why don’t you call The East Hampton Star if you need something for the book?” my wife asked when I set down the phone on Saturday afternoon. I had called the Village Police Department to ask them when the parade would be. “They would have such a picture.” “I want my own picture,” I said. I then told her the parade, which might have been Sunday, was being held on Monday morning, the actual day of Memorial Day. “I want to be down there when they throw the wreath.” In the morning, the sun rises over the ocean
to the east. I could get them facing the sunrise, a bevy of men and women wearing medals, hats, helmets and other official uniforms for the occasion. We were out late on Sunday night, since Monday was also a holiday, and, as it happened, we woke up at 8:15 on Monday morning. I immediately thought I should call the police. When did they throw the wreath? Before or after the parade? “The parade starts at ten,” I told my wife. “If it’s before the parade, I better get right down there right away. Want to come?” “Sure,” she said. My wife is up for anything. A receptionist at the police station transferred me to a sergeant. I put my hand over the phone while I was on hold. “I hope I’m not calling them too much,” I said to my wife. “I know they will have the whole force out there directing traffic for the parade.” The sergeant came on the line. He told me it would be before the parade starts. We would have to move fast. I did the calculations. It was 8:25 a.m. now. We were still in our nightclothes. It’s 10 minutes from our house to the beach. And at a certain point the police divert traffic to side roads to accommodate the parade. We didn’t want to get caught in that. (Cont’d on next page)
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