The sound of two hands clapping is lonely on a dreary, grey November 11.
A single woman, dressed in red, stood on the embankment across from the Cenotaph in Smiths Falls shortly after 11 a.m. Wednesday morning saluting seven members of the Colour Guard as they marched from the Cenotaph at the end of the Remembrance Day Ceremony. Several others stood, still and hushed, as the old vets paraded.
The lower part of Beckwith Street remained closed to traffic adding silence to the sparsely attended ceremony.
As the soldiers’ names from the Great War, WWII and the Korean War were read, the flags — all at half-mast — snapped in the wind, breaths caught, and silent tears were shed.