Students, anxious to start their holiday weekend Friday, sat on the benches at the memorial waiting for parents who would park at a nearby curb. While they waited, they looked at the seven names engraved in the black stone. Some wondered who they were. They wondered how they died.

Cars and students come and go. 

Memorial Day weekends come and go. 

But those names will always be there. 

Steve Bowman, class of 1968. Chuck Thomas, class of 1967. Dan Carrasco, class of 1966. Tom Teal, class of 1967. Lenny Nyberg, class of 1969. Jim McGuire, class of 1967. Jesse Loebach, class of 1969.

"It's sad how people died," said freshman Robert Gonzales, who said that for him, the memorial is just a place to sit. 

Tony Alvarez chokes back tears when he thinks about those names on the memorial. For him, they are more than just names. They are classmates and old friends who gave their lives for their country. 

It is for them that he celebrates Memorial Day.

The memorial is one of several places in the Inland Valley where the reverence of a few shares space with the indifference of the rest. 

"I graduated in 1976," said Alvarez, 49. "But I didn't go to Vietnam. I didn't go. It's hard to talk about."

Alvarez, president of the school's alumni association, is one of a group of former students who visits the memorial. The first Saturday of the month they are out pulling weeds, polishing glass, sweeping petals.

Nothing goes unnoticed.

Anthony Bartholomew, 49, ponders the memorial every day when he picks up his son. Bartholomew had his draft card. His number was never called.

"I lost a lot of friends in Vietnam, so this memorial is important to me," Bartholomew said. "They cannot be forgotten."

Another alumna who will always be touched by the memorial is Lois Doughty, who graduated in 1968. 

"I will probably be cleaning it until I'm very old," said Doughty, who helps maintain the memorial. "I have a tie to it, and as long as I'm here I will stop and visit."

And she wonders who will take over her mission when she's gone.

Nobody has taken over the mission at Memorial Park in Upland, where a World War I memorial deteriorates. 

In the center of the park, a cannon from World War I stands lonely beneath majestic oak trees.

Gray paint hides the rust. Wheels, ravaged by wood rot, no longer have spokes. Cranks and levers are paralyzed. Spider webs choke the barrel.

The welded letters KR are raised like bisters on the back of the trailer hitch. Nobody knows what they stand for. 

Underneath, where few bother to look, somebody wrote in pink ink the words, "Sam I love you, sorry Lisa."

There is no plaque. Sam and Lisa are the only names that grace the cannon.

City Hall officials aren't sure who maintains the cannon. It isn't them. Maintenance workers with the parks department said they never see anyone there - except for kids. They apologize for not knowing who takes care of the flag pole. They point to Ray Baker. Maybe he knows.

Baker, a senior citizen who wouldn't give his age, has manicured the nearby baseball diamond for 26 years. 

He can't remember ever seeing a flag there.