Memorial Day Parade Canceled - Ceremony at Town Hall at 10:00 am

Due to forecast for inclement weather tomorrow morning, the parade has been canceled.  The ceremony will be held inside Town Hall at 10:00 am tomorrow morning.  I hope to see all of you at Town Hall tomorrow morning.

@ Jamie:  Is it possible to make this thread a sticky just until 10:00 am tomorrow?  

Thanks Jamie!

I'm sorry that all the planning and hard work was foiled by a tropical storm...

That is so unfortunate.

It's been a very fluid situation the last 48-72 plus hours.

At the time of Joan's 3:54P post, WeatherUnderground was predicting in excess of 1.3 inches of rain for Maplewood daytime Memorial Day. Same prediction service currently calling for only .38 inches rain daytime tomorrow. Hardly qualifying for "rain so hard spectators can't see through". NWS calls chance of thunder "slight". 

Must this cancellation be irreversible? An outdoor event is so much more memorable.

Unfortunately, the cancellation was not my decision.  I would have much preferred to have waited until this morning to make the call.  Looking out the window at 5:30 am showed little if any rain, though it is clear we got some overnight.  Hourly weather forecast I just checked shows the heaviest rain for around 9:00 am this morning in NYC which translates a bit earlier in Maplewood or just about the time the parade would be assembling and kicking off here.  Canceling may still have been the right decision.  We will know in a few hours.

There is no win in making a call like this.  One advantage of canceling yesterday, as many other towns did, is that it provided enough time to get the word out so that a lot of soggy parade participants wouldn't be milling around the Lot and the parade route wondering when things were going to start.  A disadvantage is that weather forecasts are not always accurate, especially when locations in the region will receive differing amounts of rain today due to scattered storm activity.  It may be that weather conditions would have made the parade a possibility.

The most important part of the day's remembrance activity is now planned for inside Town Hall at 10:00 am.  I hope to see you there.

Man proposes God disposes

I don't post here much, but being a veteran myself I couldn't let this one pass by. Today, was a day to remember the ones that fought and died for this country... for our freedom. Was there too much of an inconvenience to stand in rain for an hour or so and honor our fallen heroes. I mean seriously... I hope you all enjoyed your cozy ceremony inside with nice chairs and hot coffee afterwards.  

A lovely ceremony - thank you to everyone who planned and participated.  The glee club sounded wonderful, the outdoor sound system does not do them justice.  The woman who performed the National Anthem was outstanding.  

svarasnj said:

I don't post here much, but being a veteran myself I couldn't let this one pass by. Today, was a day to remember the ones that fought and died for this country... for our freedom. Was there too much of an inconvenience to stand in rain for an hour or so and honor our fallen heroes. I mean seriously... I hope you all enjoyed your cozy ceremony inside with nice chairs and hot coffee afterwards.  

The decision to cancel was made by the VFW commander, so perhaps you could take your complaint there.

@svarasnj
If you attended today's ceremony, you know that the Post Commander made a plea for more veterans to join the VFW and become involved in planning the parade and other activities.  He even extended the invitation to relatives of veterans.  If you question the VFW's decision, perhaps you should become more active in the VFW.

svarasnj said:

I don't post here much, but being a veteran myself I couldn't let this one pass by. Today, was a day to remember the ones that fought and died for this country... for our freedom. Was there too much of an inconvenience to stand in rain for an hour or so and honor our fallen heroes. I mean seriously... I hope you all enjoyed your cozy ceremony inside with nice chairs and hot coffee afterwards.  

If you are a veteran, you know that while parades and duck races are nice, the heart of the day's remembrance is the memorial service, which was held indoors because the indoor space was available and because it had started raining about 30 minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin.  

Had you attended the memorial ceremony, you would have seen a near capacity crowd come to show their respect for the fallen and for the veterans present. To my way of thinking, that is the best way to honor our fallen heroes on Memorial Day.  It should also be noted that the wooden pews in Town Hall are not all that comfortable to sit on and there was no coffee, hot or otherwise, served later.

As others have suggested, if you are VFW eligible and are not already a member of this or any other veteran's organization, your membership is needed to advocate for veteran's rights in Washington and to help those veterans in need obtain the existing services to which they are entitled.  Please consider joining and becoming active in advocating for yourself and your comrades.

Joan:    I'm glad the ceremony went well. And I hope the triggers you were anticipating were milder than expected due to the unusual nature of the event because of weather. 

Peggy:  The ceremony went.  The triggers were milder than expected.  A surprising number of friends came and offered their support before the ceremony started.  It was deeply appreciated.  

The bigger trigger this weekend was the contents of the manila envelope I found by my front door on Sunday morning.  It contained a certificate in grateful recognition of Bernie's service signed by President Obama.  The timing of its receipt could not have been more appropriate.

I'm sure that the timing was no accident.  Glad to hear about it!