Oh Happy Days - Memorial Day Sales, BBQs And Summer Are Upon Us

I just figured out why I was able to score the new washing machine, that I ordered last night, at such a great price - it was on sale because of Memorial Day - whoopee!

Then I remembered that this Sunday, my wife and I have been invited to the new house of our future son-in-law and our daughter for a Memorial Day weekend BBQ. We are living high on the hog so I hope they have some swine waiting to grill for us. I am salivating - yummy!!

Thinking of that made me think that Monday is the more or less official start of summer. Soon school will be out, thus my hours at work will be cut, and I will have more time to enjoy each day in retirement (yes, I am retired but working part time). Yee-ha time to enjoy life a little bit more!!!

Then I remembered that a lot of you are veterans and a lot of folks will be thanking you for your service this weekend because of how great you have made things for us and thus how befitting they think it is to thank you over the Memorial Day weekend, because after all, it is all about veterans right. God bless the vet!!!!

Really though, it's Memorial Day and it's not about BBQs or sales or summer starting or veterans whose hand you can shake and whom you can pat of the back or about a veteran feeling good about himself for having served. It is about something related to all of the above but also very different. It is about this:

No, I am not going to tell you not to take advantage of sales and will not scream at you for celebrating the commencement of the official summer season with a wild BBQ and certainly cannot fault you for thanking veterans or for feeling great about being a veteran even if on a day that never was meant for any of it and that includes honoring the living vet (as instead was Veterans' Day). I will not do that even though Memorial Day was meant to be a day of national mourning and remembrance of they who fell, a memorial to them, on both sides, in the Civil War. It was first called Decoration Day. It later had the name changed to Memorial Day and became a national day of mourning and remembrance of all those who fell while in the military service of this nation during wartime. 

While it was never meant to be a day of celebration, I cannot fault anyone in the USA for celebrating on that day. We would not have any of our freedoms, those I just mentioned nor any others, if not for those who have fallen. I just wanted to remind you what Memorial Day truly was all about though, so that maybe, just maybe, you would take out some time this weekend, especially on the day itself, to remember them, to mourn them, to honor they who gave everything so we could be here today doing what we love to do. Why? Because Memorial Day is all about them, they who gave their lives for their country, while in military service during time of war (even though now it is usually accepted as anyone who died while in service), and thus died protecting our freedoms.

In remembering and honoring our military's war dead, many often wear the red poppy. I do not recall that I ever knew why until today. It was because of a tradition started after publication of a poem, written in 1915, by Moina Michael in response to In Flander's Fields that was written by a Canadian. She then had the idea of wearing red poppies to honor our fallen military personnel. That ultimately led to the Buddy Poppy Program of the VFW. Why not read this poem, out loud to yourself, your family, your guests or your hosts, just before you partake in your holiday BBQ this year; why not honor they who fell to make it possible:

We Shall Keep The Faith

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.
 

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red

Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
 

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.
In Flanders Fields we fought.

A hat tip to Pat S for posting the above poster on his Facebook page. It inspired me to remember, to mourn, to honor they, of the U.S. Military, who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend America during wartime.


All the best,

Glenn B