It is Memorial Day Again.

Last Memorial Day I was on a boat in Charleston Harbor headed to Fort Sumter for a much-too-short visit. But today I saw a TV blurb about the delayed Indy 500, something I have not thought about for many years.

That took me back 65 years to 1959. Memorial Day was “Decoration Day”¹ back then, and always on May 30, a Saturday, that year. I was mowing the grass with a gasoline lawnmower that you had to push. I was running with the mower so I could finish before the start of the Indianapolis 500 on the radio.² Sid Collins, the “voice of the Indianapolis 500” until1977 would say, “and now, to start the greatest spectacle in racing, here is the President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony Hulman.” Then you would hear Hulman say loudly, slowly and emphatically, “Gentlemen, Start Your Engines.”³ And even on the radio, the cacophony was overwhelming. I don’t remember much about the race, and only by looking on Wikipedia do I know that Roger Ward won in a Watson-Offenhauser, and Jim Rathman was second, also in a Watson-Offenhauser. But I listened to the entire race.