Somber Memorial Day services under a gray sky gave way to a
sunny parade and celebration of the men and women who put their
lives on the line for this country.
Gilroy
Somber Memorial Day services under a gray sky gave way to a sunny parade and celebration of the men and women who put their lives on the line for this country.
More than 100 veterans and their families gathered Monday morning at St. Mary Cemetery for an hour-long service. Surrounded by graves decorated with the Stars and Stripes, this year’s Grand Marshall Lawson Sakai shared his story with the gatherers before Gilroy Post 6309 and Post 217 V.F.W. Honor Guard blasted a rifle salute into the still morning air.
Gilroy Police Detective Stan Devlin played Amazing Grace on a set of bagpipes and a group of Gilroy women lent their vocals. Gilroy Mayor Al Pinheiro, Father Dan Derry from St. Mary Parish and County Supervisor Don Gage looked on.
After the service, families migrated south to the parade route on 10th Street, joining hundreds of Gilroyans who lined the street in deck chairs and blankets. Generations came together to celebrate the festivities. Young and old shared blankets and smiles. Cheers erupted each time a particularly flashy float passed. Eight airplanes droned overhead, signaling the start of the parade.
“This is their first Memorial Day,” said James Wallace of his two small children who waved tiny American flags. The Wallace family just moved back to California from Canada after too many subzero winters, Wallace said. He, his wife and children joined their extended family for the festivities. Theresa Wallace, 7, wore a red Faded Glory shirt over a brightly colored dress and flip flops, a far cry from the outfit she’d be wearing if the family were back in Canada, her father joked.
Although she’s a newcomer to Gilroy, Theresa Wallace joined her grandfather, Jack Corona, a Gilroyan of 59 years and a regular at the town’s Memorial Day parade.
“I have enjoyed it every year,” Corona said as his three young grandchildren whooped and hollered at passing floats, scrambling to collect the candy many of the floats’ occupants tossed into the crowd that clogged 10th Street’s sidewalks.
Wearing a top hat decorated with stars and stripes, another granddaughter, Jocelyn Hollman, 12, scanned the parade for the Garlic Man. She summed the parade up in two words: “fun and awesome.”
“The rule in this house – you have to wave at every float that goes by,” James Wallace told his children when the floats passed by.
Not only did the children wave, they nearly cheered themselves hoarse by the end of the parade. Garlic Queen Jessica Brewka and her court riding in vintage Mercedes cars, the Gilroy High School band, and the Gilroy Fire Department drew especially rowdy cheers from the crowd.
“The queens are so beautiful,” said Jennifer Rodriguez, 9, as the court motored by. “I want to be up there like them one day.”
Like many of the other families that lined the parade route, Rodriguez’s mother said their family turns out every year to enjoy the spectacle.
“We all have the holiday off so we make a day out of it,” she said. “It’s one of our favorite holidays of the year and the parade is the best part of the day.”
Throngs of children paraded behind Boy and Girl Scout banners, little boys on American-flag decorated bicycles weaving in and out of their older counterparts. Vintage tractors and classic cars puttered by, cameras flashing to capture relics of times past. The occasional blast of a siren or truck horn punctured the air as Gilroy motorcycle officers looped in circles to the crowd’s delight. A banner bearing a photo of Lance Corporal Jeremy Ailes, a GHS graduate who was killed in Iraq at the age of 22, caused some members of the crowd to bow their heads for a moment of silence.
Earlier that morning at the service, Veteran Rodney Still reminded the gatherers to keep American troops in their hearts.
“We cannot forget our troops,” he said. “God bless our veterans and God bless America.”
