Innovation and Tradition Mark Memorial Day : Observances: A year after throngs cheered Desert Storm veterans, holiday events are more varied. But New York City canceled its parade.

America celebrated its 1992 Memorial Day Weekend with parades and prayers, and a mixture of old and new traditions.

Among the newer traditions: Tens of thousands of people spent the weekend at the annual Northwest Folklife Festival at Seattle Center.

And among the old: On Saturday, Detroit held its first Memorial Day parade in 20 years.

But the same New York City that a year ago poured on the ticker tape for Desert Storm veterans is sitting out Memorial Day this year with no parade.

The Memorial Day parade, traditional in Manhattan since 1919, was called off for lack of interest. Instead the New York County American Legion planned a small ceremony today at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument by the Hudson River.

“I’ve watched the parade diminish to a point where it was almost an insult to the memory of those who fought. And that hurt,” Frank D’Amico, a 66-year-old World War II Army Air Corps veteran who helped organize the parades, told the New York Times.

Last year’s parade turnout was sparse--by marchers and spectators alike--although millions rallied only two weeks later to honor Gulf War veterans.

Cardinal John J. O’Connor used his Memorial Day sermon Sunday at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral to condemn war and indifference to suffering.

The head of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New York told worshipers that war brings no peace, “including the recent war in the (Persian) Gulf with tremendous loss of life and no indication whatsoever that the world is better.”

In Marietta, Ga., on Saturday, 900 Boy Scouts placed flags at soldiers’ graves at the Veterans Cemetery there. “We wouldn’t be free without them,” Scout Dennis Irwin said.

Hundreds of youngsters in Grafton, W. Va., laid out their best white outfits for today’s 125-year-old Memorial Day tradition, when the streets stream with a river of schoolchildren.

An estimated 1,200 youngsters--mainly ages 5 through 10, and all dressed in white--are to carry tiny American flags and bouquets to lay at soldiers’ graves at Grafton National Cemetery.

“People come back here for this parade every year,” said Jim Fawcett, 68. “It’s the biggest event that Grafton has, except when they have the high school reunion every four years.”

Even so, crowds are shrinking, said parade organizer Norman Deakins, who anticipated only 3,000 spectators this year.

“Memorial Day used to be something people were more proud of,” Deakins said.

War veterans seemed beside the point in Medina, Ohio, where the 31 firefighters decided not to drive trucks and cars in today’s parade. They’re still waiting for a 10% raise on their $8.85 hourly wage due them in January, said Fire Department Chief Leland Codding.