Today is Memorial Day, and the school where I teach and our daughter, Rose is a junior participated in the Windham, Maine Parade. Our contribution to the event included a float that was build around the verse, "Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for a friend." Behind the float eight of us juggled, including Rose and myself and several students from seventh through twelfth grades. Behind us was a group of parent, staff and younger kids handing out water bottles.

We had a wonderful time with lots of laughs, but I was surprised with how small the parade was. Windham, Maine is about the size of my hometown of Essex, Vermont, and Essex' Memorial Day parade is the largest parade of the year anywhere in the state of Vermont. Last year it had about 160 entries. Windham had eight. I knew it wouldn't be as big as the one I grew up with, but eight entries was a little disappointing. That said, we had a blast, and we're definitely the most interesting entry in the parade. The highlight for the team was Caleb, who did the entire walk on jumping stilts. But the highlight for me was spending a morning with my 16 year old.