Nini Hoxha, 3, Handing Out Flags at the Memorial Day Parade, 5/28/18, Portland.

Girl Scouts in Portland Parade 5/28/18.

Miss Maine, Katie ? at Portland’s Memorial Day Parade, 5/28/18.

Grand Marshall of the Portland Parade, Ret. 1SG Rick Cobb.  Cobb Spent 9 l/2 years on Germany and one year in Iraq, South of Bagdad, in Safwan, Iraq – Liberating Quwait. 

There are two parades tomorrow Monday, 28, 2018 that will mark Memorial Day.  One is in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

The first parade is sponsored by the City of Portland and the Harold T. Andrews 17 American Legion.  It starts at 10:30 am at Longfellow Square and proceeds down Congress Street ending at Monument Square at approximately 11:00 am.  Speeches will be made along with a wreath laying ceremony.  Mayor Ethan Strimling, Portland city councilors, Police and Fire Department Color Guards will be marching as well as others.

There will be another parade along Stevens Avenue starting at 2:00 pm.  The Stevens Avenue parade route begins at Longfellow School and concludes at Evergreen Cemetery’s south gate near the Wilde Memorial Chapel.  During a brief ceremony at the Cemetery,  flower girls will scatter flower petals over nearby veterans’ graves and there will be a symbolic laying of a wreath.  Taps will be played by Carla Beaudoin.  This is the Fifth Annual Parade sponsored by the Friends of Evergreen Cemetery.

“It was short,” said Adam Smith.  “Short and sweet.,” he said of the Annual Memorial Day Parade on Congress Street.  Cold and cloudy, too.