Four Simple Notes

On Memorial Day in Neptune Park on St. Simon’s Island the masses huddled with one accord in the declining light of another day.

Under a brilliant blue sky the sun’s last dazzling rays of the day refract from the dappled gun-metal grey waters of the Atlantic. With this backdrop, and like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, four Marines from King’s Bay stand ramrod straight, holding side-by-side two enduring symbols of America: The Stars and Stripes Flag and the blood-red Marine banner.

The occasion is “Taps at Twilight,” an island tradition held every Memorial Day in remembrance and in recognition of all Veterans of military service, living and dead. Each branch of the military is recognized by the playing of its unique marching music and the standing recognition of the Veterans. The collective soul is stirred.

Spectators sit orderly in rows, the very old and the very young. All have come to celebrate a time of remembrance for the occasion. Soon the Marines march forth, Posting the Colors under the fading shadow of the flagpole. A wreath of colorful flowers, not unlike the faces, heads and clothing of the spectators, precede a bagpiper, followed by the precise marching of Marines down a yellow-marked corridor. The crowd is silent, absorbing the essence of the procession.

Our group of 16 always arrives a couple hours earlier, setting up picnic tables under the shade and shadow of a sprawling oak tree. An old-fashioned picnic is unfolding, itself a remembrance of days gone by when towns were smaller, life slower, and time was available for such frivolity.

There’s fried chicken, covered by a red and white checkered cloth ~~ casseroles and sandwiches, snacks and sweets. Honorable mention goes to the pineapple, tomato, chicken salad and pimento cheese sandwiches…all, get this, with mayonnaise on “light bread!” It returns many, if not most, of us to school lunch buckets, memories of simpler, and perhaps more tasty times.

In a land teeming with the crosscurrents of individual freedoms, such an occasion is one of the few “connecting points” in our culture that unites us, irrespective of everything divisive. We are Americans today, celebrating together something that is bigger than our individual selves. For a few hours we lay aside our self-interest and enjoy the collective spirit that connects us.

Meanwhile, the band plays on. With salutes or with hands over our hearts, the National Anthem is sung. After a lengthy prayer, appropriate for a nation born in 1776, Brig. General Thomas S. Vandal from Ft. Stewart offers up his stirring remarks.

The sun sets in the twilight’s last gleaming as the Marines Retire the Colors. The evening turns more somber. The student JROTC from Brunswick High School proceeds slowly down the esplanade to the flagpole. The flag is lowered, folded and stored for the night. The tall flagpole stands naked as its golden dome pierces the graying sky. A mournful trumpet begins to sound out the four simple notes of “Taps,” Lights Out, or Gone the Sun…the call that ends the soldier’s day. In the distance its fading echo descends gently upon the day’s declining minutes.

As we had arrived, so we depart. Chairs folded, picnic tables closed, food (very little is left!) repackaged, good-byes said. Individuality has returned, yes, but not without a renewed sense of our collective Greater Purpose and our individual roles in it.

Four simple notes close the day… four simple notes renew the morrow. Like death and resurrection, tomorrow’s bugle call is Reveille, also played with four simple notes to the accompaniment of a cannon’s retort. It is a rousing “get ‘em up” tune as the naked flagpole is again clothed with the greatest symbol of freedom in the world…a resurrected American Flag.

So, on four simple notes a new day begins, even as our old day ended. Both remind us of our unity in spite of our differences and the power of our national pledge… “…one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

If you were there, you know. If not, remember … “E Pluribus Unum.”

Bud Hearn
May 30, 2013