Memorial Day 2019

Mark Rubin

Sunday dinner on Memorial Day 2019 weekend. I arrived moments after the dog walker pulled up. “Can you walk Max, along with Reily?” “Sure,” says she. (It’s the best $5.00 a week I spend.)

I found Irwin weeping, just as Alison Krauss started singing Amazing Grace, fiddle in hand, on PBS. (Irwin’s not a PBS guy, but the traditional networks don’t do right by Memorial Day or Independence Day.) We stood together, through the song, the introductions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—Irwin the R noted “Make Trump listen to you,” with nary a prompt from me—and the service songs, newest to oldest. Army last, and my pretty soon to be 93-year-old stepdad Army