Well, Instapundit referred me to this - Victor Davis Hanson on Memorial Day in National Review Online, in which he poignantly reflects on his namesake and relative who died in the Battle for Okinawa.
And it turns out that he was raised in Kingsburg, CA, about 62 miles as the crow flies from Ponderosa, CA, on Route 190, where (I'm pretty sure that was the town...I'm looking at a crumpled map and it's late) we saw the cemetary. And somehow reading his column, I felt an even stronger sense of connection to the old man selling paper poppies who told me about the chili cookoff and suggested we ride past the town cemetary. I'm glad we did, and sorry we missed the cookoff. I make pretty good chili - I've won a few cookoffs myself - but I'd bet I could have learned something.