{"id":362737,"date":"2018-05-25T09:22:10","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T08:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/memorial-day-2\/"},"modified":"2018-05-25T09:22:10","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T08:22:10","slug":"memorial-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/memorial-day-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I\u2019m standing on a sidewalk<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0In Pleasantville, New York. \u00a0It\u2019s 1959,<br \/>And I\u2019m holding the American flag in my hand.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">It\u2019s really hot in the bright sunshine,<br \/>But I stand at attention, like a good soldier,<br \/>And salute my father, who smiles and waves<br \/>In this home of the free, this land of the brave.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Dad\u2019s with the World War Two veterans.<br \/>They\u2019re marching to the beat<br \/>Of the fire department band sweeping down the street:<br \/>The horns blare, the drums pound, the cymbals crash \u2013<br \/>And my consciousness cracks like shattered glass.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The band\u2019s overtaken by soaring boys on bikes.<br \/>Their spokes are woven with red white and blue crepe paper,<br \/>And the fluttering streamers on their handle bars<br \/>Make them look like firecrackers on wheels.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">It\u2019s so damn dazzling I have to look away,<br \/>Down at my feet, and I\u2019m starting to sway<br \/>From the glare reflecting off the concrete.<br \/>I squint, and swoon, and look up at the sky<br \/>Where the light on the leaves of the sugar maple trees<br \/>Reflects off the chrome of the cars on the street.<br \/>I\u2019m breathless, and dizzy, and overdone.<br \/>The one thing I know, this isn\u2019t fun.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u201cDon\u2019t you ever let that flag touch the ground!\u201d<br \/>Snaps a mean old man, twisting my arm up so it hurts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Disapproving town folk stare.<br \/>I feel their looks in the depths of my soul.<br \/>What else can a ten year old boy do but slink away<br \/>And chuck that fucking flag over the first privet hedge?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">It was there and then that I knew that being<br \/>A good citizen was too much responsibility<br \/>For anyone as weak and as young as&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/05\/25\/memorial-day-3\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m standing on a sidewalk \u00a0In Pleasantville, New York. \u00a0It\u2019s 1959,And I\u2019m holding the American flag in my hand. It\u2019s really hot in the bright sunshine,But I stand at attention, like a good soldier,And salute my father, who smiles and wavesIn this home of the free, this land of the brave. Dad\u2019s with the World [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-362737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}