Memorial Day
May 30, 2019
The fact that Memorial Day is a holiday is no excuse for skipping exercise, so Peter and I went off to the gym at about 9:15 a.m. The Cambridge Memorial Day parade was underway and we had a lot of trouble navigating the car around the closed streets. When we finally got there, we found the gym closed for the holiday. One of us had checked to make sure it would be open (I won’t say which one) and got it wrong.
So we walked to another Harvard Gym that was opened. When we had finished exercising Peter decided to walk home from there, and I walked back to the car through Harvard Yard.
Commencement was three days away. Tents were up, thousands of folding chairs were waiting to be unfolded, campus tours were in progress and a few graduates were posing for photos in their caps and gowns.
For many years, I (and the Dean) had led the Kennedy School’s students in cap and gown through the streets of Cambridge to the ceremony in Harvard Yard. We were always accompanied by two policemen in full Scottish regalia playing bagpipes.
It was the culmination of a lot of work by the students, of course, but also by us, and we were ready for the school year to end.
This Memorial Day, as I walked through the Yard my eyes filled with tears.