Memorial Day Parade

I know this is obvious for most of you, but today is Memorial Day in the United States. A lot of us have the day off from work so we can celebrate the memory of those who died in wars.

One of the ways we celebrate is… parades!

Every town has its own local parade, mostly. So I watched New Providence’s! It’s sponsored by our local American Legion chapter.

The guard, shown in the top photo, was much less busy before the parade started:

I’ve never photographed a parade before. It’s hard to get good photos of a parade! I’ll need to figure out some better techniques for next time.

In memoriam

If you happen to pass through Lenape Park in Union, you might notice a tree wearing a white hat.

If you look a little closer, your amusement might turn to sadness.

Although the hat alone tells you pretty much all you need to know, Segundo Padilla was smoothing the path here when his roller toppled off the edge of a shallow embankment (presumably the one near this memorial).

The ink on the hat is fresh, and it’s my guess that the hat was just recently nailed here in memory of the one-year anniversary of his death.

It’s a tragedy, any way you slice it.

The littlest park

This statue in Springfield of a Continental soldier has the distinction of standing on the smallest state park in New Jersey. How cool is that!

…It’s almost the sort of thing they’d make a sitcom episode about!

Dem bones

This skeletal remnant has been lying near/in a trail on the Watchung Reservation for at least a few months, since the last time I came through this way.

The ribs and tibia make it something bigger than a rabbit, but the molars are reasonably small. The spot is also surrounded by gray fur. A dog, maybe, hit by a car on the nearby Glenside Avenue and rolled over here to die? I sure hope not.

I’m not sure why I’m more upset at the idea of a dog dying here than, say, a badger dying here.

Flagpole!

People passing through Scotch Plains might note a huge ugly-looking tower right in the middle of town. It is not, in fact, just there because the people of Scotch Plains enjoy huge ugly-looking towers.

It is part of a World War I monument (the entirety of which consists of the 80-foot flagpole [aka. "huge ugly-looking tower"], the traffic island on which it sits, a bronze plaque, and a cannon).

The cannon, which I unfortunately didn’t capture very well, has a slightly more interesting story:

The captured German cannon was a gift from the government, in appreciation of the fact that Scotch Plains had the largest percentage of over-subscription to the Victory Liberty Loan in any non-banking community in the Second Federal Reserve District. This subscription tallied to almost $700,000… against its quota of $25,500 (Bousquet and Bousquet, 1995, p. 124).

From what I understand, Scotch Plains now had a cannon on its hands and didn’t know what to do with it, so the Victory Celebration Committee said “Aha! Let’s make it part of a big memorial. With a flagpole and stuff! That would be so cool.”

So there it is.

Reference:

Bousquet, R. and Bousquet, S. (1995). Images of America: Scotch Plains and Fanwood. Arcadia Publishing: Dover, NH. ISBN 0738563188.

Ten years

We remember.

Planted in memory

Mulch planted in memory of Arthur Grant Balcom, April 14, 1943. (Found near the New Providence Municipal Center.)

I know, I missed posting yesterday. I’m sorry. And my photo backstock is getting to critically low levels, so it might happen again this week. Argh!

Cemetery

This is the cemetery across the road from the New Providence Methodist Church. (Pssst – click here for a Google street view of the cemetery.)

I think it goes with the church, but either way, it’s historical:

This placard near the front of the cemetery reads:

In remembrance of the soldiers of the War for American Independence who are buried in these grounds
—–
Erected by the Passaic Valley Chapter New Jersey Society Sons of the American Revolution
—–
April 19 1929

Cool.

Peaceful cemetery

Another blizzard aftermath shot: the cemetery of the New Providence Presbyterian Church. Both this church and the Methodist church a quarter-mile down the road have very old cemeteries.

Another gazebo!

This is the gazebo in the Veterans Memorial Park.

The Veterans Memorial Park is down the street from Centennial Park (which is also tiny and contains a gazebo and a lot of memorials).