Royal Oak Keeps Busy on Memorial Day

Nobody does Memorial Day like Royal Oak.

The day starts with an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast and ends with a WWII veterans tribute documentary and old-time baseball game. And there's plenty in between. 

Honor Flight film debuts

More than 100 World War II veterans and their families and friends packed into the  on Memorial Day to enjoy the premiere of the Honor Flight Michigan documentary, The Legacy.

Moviemakers Jon Mellow of Royal Oak and Gabe Downey of Huntington Woods made the Honor Flight Legacy Project documentary to honor their grandparents who served in WWII.

“Fifteen hundred World War II vets die every day. Honor Flights allowed living WWII vets to visit the memorial dedicated to honor their service and sacrifices for our country,” Mellow said.

Old-time baseball at Starr Jaycee Park

After marching in the Memorial Day parade, the Wahoo Base Ball Club of Royal Oak hosted the Greenfield Village Lah-De-Dahs Base Ball Club at Starr Jaycee Park for a gentlemanly game of baseball.

The Lah-De-Dahs compete by the rules of 1867 and the Royal Oak club has a few variations, but overall both teams were out for the love of the game on a nice, albeit it steamy, afternoon.

"It's just for the fun, for the love of the game, a nice afternoon and good people," said Tim Gorman of Royal Oak, one of the men who founded the Wahoo team in 2004.

The teams shunned the groomed baseball diamonds at the park and set up their own field on a large swatch of grass. The field was pretty soggy and the balls took a few bad bounces, but that just helped entertain the dozens of spectators.

"I don't know how much you paid for your seats, but they're pretty good," a Lah-De-Dah player commented to the folks taking advantage of the shade of a couple of trees. "Better than the Tigers," one woman quipped back.

The Wahoos team is made up of about 18 players from 12-60 years old, including an engineer, dentist, preacher and college instructor. They play about three weekends a month around the state and sometimes farther. 

"Once you play, you're hooked," said Terry "Sawdust" Utley, the team manager from Ferndale. "I like the gentlemanly aspect of the game, we get our exercise, comradery and fun.

"It's like a Sunday in 1860. The whole village is here. That's what's going on."

John "Preacher" Miller helped found the club when he was sent with just a baseball and bat from a club in Berrien County called the Cranberry Boggers to start his own team.

"It's been a lot of fun," Miller said. "We're friends on and off the field. We've got a nice core group of guys." Several players are from Miller's church, First Congregational Church in Royal Oak.

Oh, the score. Not so much fun for Royal Oak. It was the Lah-De-Dahs 16, Wahoos 9. But it was fun.

Memorial service, Marine commission, Civil War memorial

At the conclusion of the Memorial Day parade, a traditional post-parade memorial service takes place at the Veterans Memorial between City Hall and the library.

Two special events at this year’s memorial service highlighted the long history of military service by local residents.

Daniel Connolly, 24, of Madison Heights received his commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps.

"I want to thank the patriotic groups of Royal Oak," Connolly said. "They did a very wonderful job of making this a very special day for me and my family."

Republican Sen. John Pappageorge of the 13th District walked in the parade and attended the service afterward. "This was a wonderfully done ceremony and I am just proud to be here," he said.

The city's new Civil War monument also was unveiled. The granite plaque fixed on the stone monument bears 17 names of Royal Oak area residents who served in the Civil War. " It was an honor to dedicate our Civil War Monument and add it to the rest of our monuments," parade Co-Chair Carol Hennessey said.

Hennessy was very pleased at the turnout at the service Monday. "We never had this big of a crowd before. I take it you all like the new location," she said at the service.

Bikes blessing, care packages at St. Paul Lutheran Church

After the parade, hosted “The Blessing of the Bikes: Gear Up for Summer,” a free community event that also included free hotdogs and drinks, face painting and putting together care packages for troops in Afghanistan.

The Rev. Jeremy Schultz, pastor at St. Paul's, said he blessed about 70 bikes, scooters, strollers, skateboards and other wheeled transportation today.

"We were kind of caught off guard about the timing ... it's our first year so we are taking notes," he said as parishioners and other community members visited and enjoyed the activities after the blessing.

Participants were encouraged to sign T-shirts and postcards to send to troops overseas.

"One of our guys is serving in Afghanistan," Schultz said. "We are just trying to support him with some care packages."

With her infant strapped to her in a wrap, Nicole Burch encouraged people to sign the T-shirts and postcards. "Sign as many as you want," she said. It is her husband, Kevin, who is the church member in Afghanistan.

Kevin has been in Afghanistan since the end of January and missed the birth of their second child, Mason, who was born six weeks early but is doing fine now. "We have another child, too, our daughter Alivia," Burch said.

Burch hopes to get 30 T-shirts and 500 postcards signed to deliver to her husband's unit in Afghanistan.

The parade

The annual Royal Oak Memorial Day parade appears to have gone off without a hitch. Mother Nature sure cooperated with mostly sunny skies and temps in the mid-70s.

Hundreds of people – young flag wavers to aging veterans – lined the curbs and sidewalks along Main Street downtown. Veterans organizations, marching bands, city officials and local politicians joined Scout troops, church and school groups and the Royal Oak High School football team, which carried a huge American flag along the route.

The Jasmund family came from Warren to take part in the Memorial Day activities. Ben Jasmund and his 3-year-old son Jacob donned camouflage caps and Marines T-shirts and sat on the curb on Main Street to get a good view of the parade. Mom/wife Susan was there, too. She said the family is a member of nearby St. Paul Lutheran Church in Royal Oak and would be helping out at the church's Blessings of the Bikes event after the parade.  "It's fun," Susan Jasmund said.

St. Paul easily had the largest group in the parade, outside of the marching bands. Members cheered as the families marched by.

Pancake breakfast

City Commissioner Chuck Semchena arrived at the about 7:20 a.m., ready to help with the breakfast. “The weather’s good,” he said. "We’re going to get slammed in about a half hour.”

Pancake breakfast organizer Jay Dunstan, a past president of of the Royal Oak Historical Society, was looking forward to the day. “We’ll get about 900-1,000 people.”

"Most people come after the parade," Dunstan said. "But it’ll get busy about 8 o’clock. You’ll see people come in in their parade stuff on. 

“We’ll serve nearly 4,000 pancakes. It is an all-you-can-eat and people do take advantage of it. And we’ll go through a little over 2,000 sausages.”

Dunstan also serves on the Downtown Development Authority and organizes next weekend's  , too. "This is the busy week.”

Peggy Stratton and her daughter Marah were serving up pancakes – plain or chocolate chip Mickey Mouse shape – to the early crowd.

“This is our first year,”  Peggy Stratton said in between serving pancakes.

Marah came along to help to help fill out her community service hours for her college degree. She is studying Commercial Recreation at Central Michigan University and is in her fourth year in the marching band there.

Royal Oak Farmers Market Master Gwen Ross was also on hand, volunteering her time so the Historical Society didn't have to pay someone from the market to be there. 

Dunstan says Gwen does “a lot, a lot, a lot” to help put on the breakfast, including loaning her roaster to keep the sausage warm

"I’m just the go-fer," Ross joke.

Ross, who is retiring this year after 12 years on the job, was enjoying her "bankers hours" today. "On market days I'm here about 2:30 a.m. to open up," she said. 

Ross, who has lived in Royal Oak about 45 years, is also a member of the Historial Society.