Parade, Speeches Honor Veterans

As she’s been documenting on her Maplewood Online blog “Joan Plans a Parade,” Joan Crystal has been busy planning this year’s Maplewood Memorial Day Parade since February. It’s the fifth year she and her husband Bernard have quarterbacked the parade, and she indicated that it seems to now run itself.

“It’s almost got to the point where they’d line themselves up and march along,” she said.

Over 20 groups will be marching in this year’s parade. Participants are drawn from schools, civic groups, youth organization, town officials and more. Attractions include three musical groups—the Columbia High School Marching Band, the Maplewood Community Band and musicians from Maplewoodstock—and classic cars.

The parade kicks off in the parking lot of Columbia High School at 9 a.m. on Monday. After marching a route through Maplewood village and by Memorial Park, the parade ends at the Municipal building, where a ceremony honoring soldiers, who died in service, will be held.

“The ceremony is solemn, but the parade isn’t,” Crystal said.

Memorial Day, originally known as Decoration Day, was established after the Civil war to commemorate soldiers who died during that war. After World War I, it became a day celebrating the service of soldiers who gave their lives during any war.

A number of local veterans, drawn from Maplewood’s Veterans of Foreign Wars group and elsewhere, will march in the parade. Also, the South Mountain Peace Action group will march.

“They don’t like war, but they’re highly behind the troops who serve,” Bernard Crystal, a VFW member, said.

It’s an example of the community-building nature of the day. Among the confirmed participants are the Police Honor Guard, the Boy and Girl Scouts, members of the Township Committee and the Fire Department and First Aid Squad. The last two will be trailing the parade in case they need to leave the event to deal with emergencies. The Crystals said they hope that everyone in town will either march in the parade or watch it.

“It physically brings people together,” Joan Crystal said. “People sit and talk to their neighbors. You get a sense that everyone has gathered for a single positive purpose, which is remembering the veterans that are no longer with us.”