The whole parade stopped behind it.
There was nothing behind it, actually. The veterans’ float was the last one. But everybody on Main Street turned to look. The band, which had gone around the corner at Third Street, stopped playing. You could hear the tractor idling.
Gus stood up.
He’s ninety-four years old. He hasn’t stood up on that float in five years. They strap him into the chair too, now, because of his balance. One of the Vietnam guys, Larry Fossum, reached over and grabbed his belt so he wouldn’t fall.
Gus stood there in his garrison cap on the hay wagon in the middle of Main Street and pointed down the sidewalk at my mother.
Then he looked for the young man with the clipboard.
The young man was standing at the end of the rope, about twenty feet away. He looked confused. He looked like he didn’t know if something was wrong with the tractor.
“You,” Gus said.
His voice carried. That gravel-pit voice. You could have heard it in the next county.
“You. With the clipboard.”
The young man pointed at his own chest.
“Yes. You. Come here.”
The young man walked over to the hay wagon. He looked up at Gus.
“Sir? Is everything okay? Do you need—”
“Who moved Peg Lindahl?”
The young man looked blank.
“I’m sorry?”
“That woman,” Gus said, pointing. “In the red sweater. By the bank. Who moved her?”
The young man followed his finger. He saw my mother. He saw the green lawn chair.
“Oh,” he said. “I asked her to move behind the barrier. That section was reserved for veterans this year. She was very nice about it.”
Gus looked at him for a long time.
I’ve seen a lot of looks in my life. I’d never seen one like that.
“Son,” Gus said. “What’s your name?”
“Mason. Mason Reed. I’m the new coordinator for Parks and—”
“Mason. Do you know what that pin is? On her sweater?”
Mason looked toward my mother. He couldn’t see it from there. He shook his head.
“That’s the insignia of the Army Nurse Corps,” Gus said. “She was an operating room nurse at the 71st Evacuation Hospital. In Pleiku. In 1968.”
The sidewalk had gone completely quiet.
Mason opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
“She’s a veteran,” Gus said. “She’s been a veteran longer than you’ve been alive. Longer than your daddy’s been alive, probably. She’s been sitting in that same spot in front of Ostby’s every Memorial Day for forty years. And every year, when this float comes by, she stands up. And nobody in this whole town has ever thanked her for it.”
He was still pointing.
“And you moved her behind a rope.”
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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