Americans ponder losses past and present on a subdued Memorial Day

On a holiday that usually mixes sombre remembrance and blissful renewal, the nation marked an unusually grim Memorial Day in which losses from the past merged with ones from the present.

Gray skies and rain in much of the United States on Monday provided a muted backdrop as crowds flocked to beaches, amusement parks, lakes and boardwalks on the first long weekend since the coronavirus began to tear through the country, taking almost 100,000 lives with it.

For many people, the day was an attempt to turn the page from the lockdowns of the past two months to something more resembling the traditional beginning of summer. Still, moving beyond the virus remains a long way off, and the juxtaposition of past and present had its jarring elements this weekend.

At beaches, seaside arcades and other attractions, even in states where infections are on the rise, there was often a disregard of masks and social distancing, as if they were too-persistent reminders of the virus people hoped to escape.

Meanwhile, on the nation’s most hallowed ground, the families of service members who were slain by snipers or blown up by improvised bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan visited their loved ones’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery, clad in face masks and required to observe social distancing.

To gain access, mourners had to show entry guards three items: a family pass, a government-issued ID and a face covering, which they had to wear anywhere they could not maintain a 6-foot separation.

Even the soldiers of the 3rd US Infantry Regiment, known as the Old Guard, wore masks as they planted small American flags next to every grave at Arlington before the holiday.

There was one exception: At a gravesite, members of the same household could kneel and weep and pray together without masks.

The virus has struck war veterans hard. More than 1,000 patients of the Department of Veterans Affairs have died from complications of COVID-19. At least 89 veterans at one state-run facility, the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home in Massachusetts, have died since March; 74 tested positive for the disease.

In many places, including Florida, the weather did not cooperate Monday. Clouds and bursts of rain dampened a lot of beach plans in the state, but surfers were eager to test the waters. A dozen or so rode the waves in Boca Raton just before another thunderstorm was expected to pass through.

“Are you kidding me? Look at those waves,” Don Thomas, 55, a lawyer who grew up near the beach, said Monday morning. “I woke up at 5 am, had a cup of coffee and was at the beach by 6 am.”

Thomas said the beach was so packed a day earlier that he had to draw a circle in the sand, reinforced with a few rocks, to keep people 6 feet away.

“People have been inside so long that they are not thinking, they just want to enjoy the outside,” he said.

Near Daytona Beach, hundreds of people had to be rescued from the surf over the long weekend as massive crowds took over the beaches of Volusia County. Six people were also wounded in a shooting.

In many places, social distancing was a sometimes thing at best.

Videos of partygoers enjoying the weekend at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri and Ocean City, Maryland, often with little more than sunscreen and bathing suits to separate them, dismayed and angered many on social media. But the mayor of one resort town in Missouri said nothing could stop the defiance of social-distancing guidelines, short of shutting down the whole area.

In Altamahaw, North Carolina, some 4,000 auto racing fans jammed into the Ace Speedway despite a state reopening plan that limited outdoor gatherings to 25 people.

Masking was hardly the only change for a holiday weekend that honours the nation’s war dead: Many traditional parades were cancelled, replaced by video commemorations, and even what was billed as a MAGA boat parade in Charleston, South Carolina.

Much of California dodged the bad weather seen elsewhere. As the morning fog lifted along the Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles County, cars and recreational vehicles were already grinding bumper to bumper, struggling to find parking as surfers, paddle boarders and fishermen jockeyed for position.

At a rocky outcrop on the highway in Malibu, Grace Kim posed for selfies with a friend next to a pair of seagulls.

“I’m obviously nervous to be around people,” said Kim, 31, an apparel worker who lives in the Koreatown neighbourhood of Los Angeles. “This is my first outing, I’ve been alone for a month.”

As she spoke, the highway roared with motorcyclists while distant wafts of marijuana smoke mixed with the salty smell of the sea. It did not feel like a normal day, she said. “It is scary.”

Farther north on the highway, one group eager to make a statement formed a procession of pickup trucks waving American flags. Some flags read “POW MIA,” an homage to prisoners of war and missing soldiers.

The caravan included more than 100 F-250s and Dodge Rams, many featuring the slogan “Dirty Riders” with “Trump 2020” flags blowing in the wind. The coordinated effort zoomed past dozens of supporters who cheered in front of a Subway and held signs like “transition to greatness.”

Even with national divisions and balky weather, a holiday beach trip — East Coast or West — offered a chance at a feeling of normalcy.

For Francesca De Alejandro, the lockdown reduced an active life to endless hours inside her Fort Lauderdale, Florida, condo. The beach was closed. The gym too.

So De Alejandro, 31, a financial planner, made the 20-mile trip to a beach on the southern end of Boca Raton with her boyfriend on both Sunday and Memorial Day. Even wind gusts and a cloudy sky that promised more rain was better than being inside.

“I have been locked in the house since the pandemic started,” she said. “I needed to be outside.”

Surfboard in hand, she skipped across a nearly empty beach where fellow surfers rode waves brought by bands of stormy weather. A couple huddled under a blanket. A little boy dumped wet sand in his red plastic bucket.

Since the early days of the pandemic, the beach has been in sight but just out of reach for people like Ernesto Stephens, who recently lost his job as a restaurant waiter.

“I feel like the pandemic forces you to think about stuff that was just normal before, like a day at the beach,” Stephens said Monday at a South Florida beach. “The weather is crappy, but I decided to come out anyway.”

A trip to the surf on Memorial Day was an important lesson in getting back to normal for Michelle Kelly’s 9-year-old daughter Sophia.

At Beachside Pizza & Pasta, where they ordered a few cheese slices before walking to the beach, Kelly, of Coral Springs, Florida, sprayed Lysol on her credit card after paying for the food.

She had been trying to find safe outdoor activities during the pandemic, taking Sophia on bike rides and making chalk drawings on the sidewalk. She wanted her daughter’s attention turned away from something so unpredictable and scary.

“How normal can you feel when you are standing with a mask on?” she said.

Still, they made a trip to the beach part of the Memorial Day holiday — while both wearing masks.

“I am not going to let this pandemic keep us from the beaches,” Kelly said. “I am not going to let this pandemic keep us from trying to have a normal life. We just have to take precautions.”

In Long Beach, New York, about 30 miles from Manhattan, it was clear this was not a standard kickoff to summer. “Beach open to residents only, maintain social distance,” a highway sign announced on a main thoroughfare.

Along the boardwalk there, most people wore masks. And on the beach, separate parties kept their distance. One person played a recording of taps over a stereo.

Ray Ellmer, 64, a lawyer, said the beach, with the open space and stiff breeze, felt secure. To him, that was cathartic.

“You’re really safe here,” he said. “It’s a real treat to be outside, it makes it special, you can definitely honour what Memorial Day means.”

Josh Horowitz, 52, a real estate broker, said the world was in “a weird time, a stressful time, an uncomfortable time.” He said the relative normalcy of Memorial Day on the beach was not a reprieve from worry.

“An escape? You can’t escape,” he said. “Wherever you go, you’re reminded.”

c.2020 The New York Times Company