We trooped off to the Memorial Day service in light sprinkles Monday and listened to the speeches and wished it would rain hard, for the interest. The usual themes of ancestor worship and Pax Americana, and then a moment of silence and Taps, and we dispersed, feeling we’d not honored the fallen as they deserve to be. For one thing, we were a crowd of somber stiff-legged old people and they were eager young men who kept pictures of beautiful broads in their lockers and fully expected to beat the odds and return home safely and resume their romances with Betty and Veronica. Rather than speak of honor and loyalty, we should’ve hired a pack of lovely young mammals to whirl around in the Lindy Hop. Long-legged dames in flared skirts hoisted up high by sailors, exposing their white undies, and swung around and slid between the gentleman’s legs — that’s how the fallen would wish to be remembered, as Gene Kelly.

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →