MEMORIAL DAY CONCERT

This afternoon we followed tradition and attended the memorial Day concert at Green-Wood Cemetery here in the Republic of Brooklyn. For those who don't live in New York, Green-Wood is a 478 acre "rural" burial ground that was founded in 1878 and contains such "permanent visitors" as Leonard Bernstein, Currier and Ives, F.A.O. Schwartz, Jean-Michel Besquiat, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Civil War generals, baseball legends, politicians, artists, entertainers, inventors, and just plain folks. Green-Wood does not allow photos but you can visit http://www.greenwoodcemetery.org/ to see photos of the grounds and monuments. They are truly spectacular.

This is the second year that the concert was performed by the ISO Symphonic Band, made up of some of New York's talented, budding musicians. We heard a number of songs that were unfamiliar to me but there were plenty of old favorites like selections from "West Side Story", "America the Beautiful", "Over the Rainbow", and a selection of Glenn Miller tunes. The most moving part of the concert was when the band plays the Armed Services Salute and veterans of each of the services stand up while a snippet of their anthem is being played so that we can thank them for their service by applauding. Sad to say, the number of World WAr II veterans gets smaller every year.

In honor of Memorial Day, I am posting photos of some little flag pins that I made in 2001. The pattern for the cute American flags was made by Dana Hall (http://www.dbeads.net/), who graciously allowed me to make flags to sell at the 2001 Broadway Cares Flea Market after the Towers fell. The money from the flea market went to a charity for victims of the World Trade Center attack. I pulled out one of the unfinished flags last night and glued the back to it so that I could wear a flag pin to the concert.

The Union Jack flag is a design I came up with for my fellow Bead Society of Great Britain members after the bombings in their London subway system. I don't think they celebrate Memorial Day in the U.K., but my research into World War I leaves me with a soft spot for British soldiers.