Around Town: A schedule could use adjusting
It’s time to change La Cañada’s Memorial Day weekend schedule.
When our kids were little, we’d go to the Memorial Day service in the park, led by their principal and role model, Don Hingst.
Kids have a short attention span, so an hour of memorial was enough, during those years of peace.
We had friends, Vietnam veterans like my husband, who skipped the service. They’d go hiking or stay home. For the bereaved, the Fiesta was difficult.
But we’d leave the service, join the parade, either as spectators or participants, or both, then go to a friends’ BBQ. It was all good. We enjoyed the Fiesta Days celebration. It was a time of peace, a time for families to gather.
Fiesta Days has never been about Memorial Day. The website gives this history: “Fiesta Days is an annual Memorial Day celebration hosted by the La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce & Community Association. It was founded in 1973 to celebrate the Spanish heritage of our community during the week of Cinco de Mayo. It has since become an all-encompassing and complete small town community celebration and has moved to the end of the month of May.”
We did notice about 20 years ago there were no memorial plaques in the park. Had anyone from La Cañada died in wartime? So, in the mid-1990s, still during a time of peace, our teenage daughter started Project Remembrance, researched, raised funds, got approval from the Parks and Recreation Commission for the first plaques for La Cañada’s war casualties. Today, the city is committed to the project. The City Council and staff do a sensitive and excellent job of maintaining the memorial at the gazebo in Memorial Park.
As the years passed, the memorial ceremony evolved. Veterans, including WWII vets, were invited onto the stage, to identify themselves and be acknowledged.
And then there were new losses in this post 9-11 Long War, which has changed our perception of the memorial service.
The service, which in recent years has been organized by fellow Valley Sun columnist Joe Puglia, is smack dab the midst of our town’s Memorial Day weekend festivities. It is often overlooked and rushed for time. The bereaved can feel sad after the ceremony, too sad to watch the Fiesta Days parade. The ceremony conflicts with Glendale’s ceremony, which starts at 9:30 a.m. in front of their “Glendale Montrose Crescenta Valley Memorial” near the Glendale City Hall.
And then, I noticed that this year, Montrose is holding its ceremony on Sunday, May 29, at 8 a.m., not on Memorial Day.
This got me thinking. Why can’t LCF schedule our memorial service on Sunday afternoon? There’s some clear advantages. We could have the ceremony indoors. We could rotate it each year through the churches in the community.
A change in schedule would allow us to take our time, not to rush, not to impose a time of bereavement on the festivities, or vice versa. It would provide a space between remembrance and celebration, and allow the politicians and surviving families to attend other ceremonies on Memorial Day, in Glendale, or Forest Lawn.
There’s nothing wrong with scheduling Fiesta Days for Memorial Day weekend. Our Fiesta Days is a great event. Lots of towns do something similar. Bishop’s Mule Days is on Memorial Day weekend too.
Instead of “either or,” maybe it’s time to do both.
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ANITA SUSAN BRENNER is a longtime La Cañada Flintridge resident and an attorney with Law Offices of Torres and Brenner in Pasadena. Contact her at anitasusan.brenner@yahoo.com. Follow her on Instagram @realanitabrenner, Facebook and on Twitter @anitabrenner.