May 26, 2009

Memorial Day: Don’t Wait to Salute the Vets

Memorial Day is one of my favorite holidays, and not just because it is one of the first excuses of the new summer season to dress up in shorts, tank tops and flip flops for our ritual orgy of brats and beer in the back yard.

For one thing, it was a pretty darned fine weekend for those of us who like to look at race cars and girls in skimpy outfits. This year, it all started with the Grand Prix of Monaco on Sunday at 8 a.m. (3 a.m. if you prefer not to see your effete European superstars rocketing past the yacht club on tape delay).

One of my favorite parts of any Grand Prix is the interview with the Scandinavian drivers after the race. Their English is always terrific, but they deliver their deadpan speeches in a sort of staccato Nordic monotone that is a masterpiece of elocution. And breath control:

“Well, forsure, westartedoutgood, butwecouldn’tcatchKimibeforethefirststop, andthenwehadtheproblemwiththetirecompound, but, forsure, theteamdidagreatjobtogetustothirdplace, and, forsure, wearedisappointedwecouldnotwintoday, butwearehappytogetaplaceonthepodiumandwewill, forsure, buildonthisforthenextrace.”

Then there is Indianapolis 500, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. As a general rule the skirts do not tend to run quite as high on the thigh in central Indiana as they do on the Riviera, but the cars are even faster. And whenever the network has a little time to kill, you get some great bikini shots of Danica Patrick.

I really love the NASCAR event, the Coca-Cola 600. These cars aren’t nearly as quick as the ones they drive in Indy or Formula 1 races, but they are fast enough. They are also built so the drivers can do a fair amount of bumping and banging each other around, so a driver trying to work his way through race traffic at 200 miles per hour is just like any of us regular folks trying to make it through the parking lot at Costco.

In fact, one of the biggest draws of NASCAR is that cars are supposed to remind us of the ones we all drive every day – especially those of us who have decals for our headlights and taillights, run engines with just a little less than 900 horsepower and are sponsored by Viagra.

The women of NASCAR stand alone – usually with one hip provocatively shoved out to the side. These girls are pretty much walking advertisements for chemically enhanced hair color and surgically enhanced body parts. As of this writing, I have never met a man who had any sort of problem with that.

This year, monsoons in Charlotte, North Carolina caused hours of rain delays in the Coca-Cola 600, which gave the network plenty of time to run commercials featuring Danica Patrick unzipping her racing suit.

On Memorial Day here in Detroit, unlike cities like, say, Anaheim, we have an added sports bonus – our Red Wings hockey team is still playing for the Stanley Cup. There is just something really special about sitting back to enjoy a Molson and the smell of sun screen on a holiday weekend afternoon while you watch a bunch of Canadians and Europeans fly around on a big sheet of ice and beat each other senseless.

Of course, there is another meaning to Memorial Day, one that sometimes gets lost in all the roaring engines and balloons and tight t-shirts and – well, balloons. I think it is a good idea to remember that the actual holiday is here to commemorate the men and women who served our country as soldiers, especially those who gave their lives in that service.

I can’t help thinking about my father, still in his teens, going into the Army Air Corps during World War II. At an age when the biggest thing on the minds of most of our kids today is how they are going to get their hands on the latest iPhone, he was riding around in the nose of a B-17 heavy bomber, looking down at a devastated planet through a bomb sight.

My father came home after the war and started a family. A lot of his friends did not make it back, just like a lot of my friends never made it back from Vietnam. In both cases, it seems like all those who did were changed forever.

I can’t help thinking back through our nation’s history about all the friends, and fathers, and mothers, and sons, and daughters, and brothers, and sisters who have left their innocence or their lives behind on battlefields around the world. They were all people who had the courage to step up and accept the job of protecting our country, to do what our leaders told them to do, and if necessary to lay down their lives doing it.

So I hope you enjoyed all the racing, and the girls, and the sun on your Memorial Day just as much as I did. But I also hope you took a few minutes to think about the people who gave up the chance to be here to enjoy it all with us. And next time you see a vet, don’t wait until next May to salute them.

They earned it.

Copyright ©2009 Michael Ball. Distributed exclusively by North Star Writers Group.

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