The causeway lined with 2,000 flags

Twice a year the causeway between Muskegon and North Muskegon turns into a corridor of flags. Volunteers plant one at each bronze plaque along the parkway — around 2,000 of them — and on Memorial Day and Flag Day the whole narrow strip of land snaps and ripples red, white, and blue.

The rest of the year it’s quieter. Veterans Memorial Park is a thin ribbon of green between the two cities, threaded with footbridges, a lagoon, and a small island, all of it built across the marshy stretch where the Muskegon River fans out toward the lake. Work began in 1928, and the park was dedicated on Armistice Day — November 11, 1934 — as a living memorial to local men who died in World War I. A grassy place to walk, rather than a slab of granite, was the whole idea.

It grew from there. As more wars came and went, the park became a tribute to everyone who served, and the plaques multiplied. Each one was bought by a family or a friend to mark a particular veteran by name, so the line of them reads almost like a roll call you drive past at 35 miles an hour. There’s a fountain anchoring one end and a Vietnam memorial at the other.

It’s free, it’s open year-round, and most days you’ll have the footbridges to yourself. Come back on the last Monday in May, though, and you’ll understand why people slow down: 2,000 flags standing at attention over the water, one for every name someone wanted remembered.