Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Did You Miss The Memorial Day Parade?

What can you tell me about holidays? If you look forward to them you are probably an adult who would rather stay home than go to work, or a child who has been alerted to its economic possibilities by an electronic media.

If you are completely oblivious to holidays, birthdays or anniversaries, you are probably a very old man who lives alone.

Through no fault of my own, I missed our Memorial Day parade.

I did know that it was Monday, I did know that I had not had my morning shower or put out the rhubarb. I did know that I was goofing off by sitting in my pajamas, writing for three or four hours before making my long-overdue television program --- which I absolutely had to make every day for the past three weeks.

But --- when it was too late I suddenly remembered that it was the one day in the year that I like to drive my 1919 Model T Ford in the St. George Memorial Day parade. To make my crime even more culpable, although it was Memorial Day in Maine, the sun at least pretended to shine.

My wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, spent the night on Monhegan and wasn’t here. The only written instructions I had in hand said “Hang Wash” and focusing my attention on anything else would have constituted mutiny or, at the least, dereliction of duty.

For the first years of our marriage I awoke to the sound of a voice telling me what to do.

As our marriage matured, I was awakened by a voice telling me to please put in my hearing aids so I could hear the voice telling me what it was I had to do.

You know very well that when an old man’s wife dies, he is very likely to follow her within a year. Many people sadly shake their heads and tell you that he wasted away from grief.

If the truth were known, no one told him to eat.