It’s Memorial Day in the US. Growing up I enjoyed the summer holidays. We usually spent them with local relatives only so there was less fuss and more time for fun. When I was a teen, I appreciated that most of the side dishes and desserts, salads, deviled eggs, pies, and cakes, could be made in advance. My father and uncles would man the grill meaning I could beg off early to run around with my friends instead. As a young adult, the day off meant cookouts and kegs.
When my own child was young backyard pool parties with a smaller, quieter group of friends were the rule. But now that I’m getting older I don’t seem to do much of anything anymore. Covid shrank my friend group and it’s usually too hot to spend much time outdoors anyway. How do you celebrate the minor holidays, Deadsplinters?
I’m a cynic when it comes to national holidays (Canadian and American alike). I don’t celebrate or observe them. I just enjoy the long weekend.
I few the same way.
I’ve noticed that Gunnar has been occasionally coming into the barn to look in on the toddlers.
Now this is something to celebrate! 🐴🐑❤️
I love this so much. Hi, Gunnar!
Memorial Day weekend when I was a kid meant the neighborhood pool was opening up.
We’d typically end up at my favorite aunt and uncle’s house most weekends for bbq anyways and just throw stuff together. So we’d do that too for Memorial Day weekend or Labor Day weekend, but it wasn’t any different than a usual Saturday or Sunday in the summer.
Notable exception being 4th of July because that aunt and uncle lived in Jefferson County and JeffCo has no rules against fireworks so that would involve a lot of fireworks being set off.
Just to be clear, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetary (with its 237,000 military interments) is like 15 minutes from where I grew up and we didn’t go visit or do anything to remember the fallen when I was a kid.
You’d think my parents would now, what with father’s obsession with the modern fascist conservative party and their obsession with “the troops”, but no. There’s even a monument to Confederate soldiers there and the Missouri Civil War Museum which really managed to stress state’s rights narratives over subjugation and slavery as causes, but ya know, even with that, he still stays home.
It was the same with us. My father worked in a steel mill so he didn’t always have the day off. If he did we just used it as an excuse for a party. On the 4th we always went into town for the fireworks which were fantastic.
I used to go visit my old boss who was a Vietnam vet. Since he died I don’t do much of anything related to Memorial Day specifically.
Fanny and I walked to the local Viet Nam War Memorial. I didn’t grow up here so I obviously don’t know any of the names but I lost a cousin in Viet Nam, I do it as a way to honor him. Other than that I’m just doing a few chores and relaxing.
Since he was a vet, this would be the absolute PERFECT day to go make a visit to his grave, if it’s close enough💖
This is the weekend that I try to drive the “back route” home to the cities, if I’m up home, for *exactly* that reason… my grandparents’ cemetery happens to be just off of Highway 55–the *pre-interstate* route across MN from WI to ND.
Grandpa was a complicated man, and he came back from WW2 a raging alcoholic, and a MEAN drunk… but he was also someone who’d lost his own father as a child, and then got drafted into the Navy & sent to the Pacific theater as the mechanic on a PT boat, and he didn’t know how to swim!!!😳😬🥴
It’s absolutely zero surprise that he came back traumatized a.f, with what we now know as PTSD, and became a rip-raging abusive damn drunk… that kind of thing would wreck *most* folks after enough years.🙃
But he WAS my grandpa–even though he passed a couple years before I got here–and I DO try to stop by, lay a penny on their headstone, and leave some flowers if I can swing by Memorial Day weekend (and leave coins as a tribute & thank-you on a few of the other vets’ graves at that cemetery, who were his friends & acquaintances, too.💖)
Unfortunately he is buried back in Pittsburgh and I’m in Kentucky. But I thought of him too while paying respects to the local fallen.
It’s good of you to visit his grave. I like you leaving tokens for other Vets too. ❤️
Memorial Day *used* to be “The Parade Day” in my hometown, when I was a kid.
It was the day that the high school band would play a few songs as we walked to the drum cadence, from the High School–which, back then, was where the Civil-War cannon sat on it’s concrete base–all the way through town (4 1/2 to 5 blocks, or so), to the Community Center/Fire Hall. (After my town lost our HS to consolidation, and the eventual closure & sale of the then-elementary school, the Cannon was carefully moved up to lawn in front of the Community Center/Firehall)
The parade consisted of the HS Band, The guys from the American Legion, who served as the parades Color Guard–typically one or two of my uncles, and sometimes my dad served as some 9f the flag-bearers–whoever didn’t carry flags was typically marching along with the rest of the Legion, and perhaps being one of the 7 men carrying the rifles for the later 21-gun salute(s)…
The Town’s Firetrucks were often next, along with the First Responder Crew’s Ambulance.
Then we had the American Legion Auxiliary (that Mom used to belong to, and of which, I’m now eligible to become a member, because of being Dad’s daughter), and there were also the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, “the Motorcycles” (when I was a kid, it was a bunch of guys & gals who lived down in & around “the Cities,” they were Doctors, Lawyers, & successful business-folk in their day-to-day lives, but they came back “up home” and tent-camped out at the city park a few times a year, bringing their Harleys for the Parade every spring), and any other assorted kids who wanted to walk the parade & carry flowers they’d picked from their parents’ gardens.
Then we’d all load up in 2-3 school busses, & head out to the town cemetery south of town.
The band would play The Star Spangled Banner, perhaps another song or two, the list of War-Dead & passed veterans starting from the Civil War to the present would be read (whoever was the most senior upperclassman carrying one of the school’s two snare drums drumrolled as the names were read-stopping the roll after each name.), a few blessings from a local priest or minister were said for all the dead, & a few flowers were laid there at the base of the little War Memorial the town got back after the Civil War, to commemorate those who never made it back home…
Then we all loaded back up into the school busses, and headed out to the lake…
The busses parked at the public beach (the only place with a large enough space for them to park), the folks who drove their own vehicles would also park down there, then we lined up again–Color Guard in the lead, and walked back to the “nice beach” at the North End of the bigger lake (about a blocks distance away).
Then the color guard would line up facing the water–with the rifleman *at* the shoreline, National Anthem was played again, some words and benedictions were said by the same priest/minister–this time, including a blessing for all those lost at sea in service to our country.
We kids & anyone else who brought flowers floated *those* out into the water, and then it was time for one of the boys from the band to play Taps (we never had any girls who chose to play Trumpet/Coronet in the band–so it wasn’t a sexist thing!).
As soon as Taps was done, the leader of that year’s color guard called “Present Arms!” The rifleman did, and then the 3-round volley/21-gun salute was fired out over the water.
After that, we all observed another moment or two of silence, and them walked back to the busses, headed back into town, got off the busses ..
And typically Dad, my Uncles, and the rest of the Firemen in the Legion changed out of their dress clothes/uniforms (for the guys who still *fit* in theirs) back into their everyday clothes, and then they all helped with the Fireman’s Pancake Breakfast–which was just starting up in the fire hall side of the Community Center.
Those pancake breakfasts bookended the summer-one on Memorial Day, and the other on Labor Day.
They were an all-you-can-eat shindig, with pancakes, sausages, scrambled eggs (liquid & boxed), & hashbrowns, all usually purchased at cost from the nearest Perkins, and acted as the biggest fundraisers for the volunteer fire department. Most of the town stayed to eat, so the firehall was ALWAYS full of folks, and that was the way the town typically raised funds to buy new gear & replace the old hoses, etc.
Things have changed a bit, in the 20+ years since I left home–and apparently the parade has shifted to the 4th, instead…
But it wasn’t a bad way to learn the difference between Memorial Day (for the folks who’ve *passed*), Veterans’ Day (the day to thank the Vets who are LIVING, and remember those who’ve passed), and Labor Day (the day for *workers* not just veterans!), as a kid…
Hearing Taps and the 21-gun salute every year, was ALSO a good way to get used to the idea, that *someday* when all of us who have Dads who served have to deal with their passing, *we* will end up hearing Taps & the salute for *them*… It’s not ANYTHING any of us are looking forward to… but learning our expected decorum *from* our Dads, back when we were kids, makes the idea of facing that ceremony much less overwhelming than if we *hadn’t* had all those years of showing respect for the Vets who’d passed before… we learned how to “read” (hear?) the orders called by the head of the color guard, the order of events, and how to brace for the sound of the volleys without flinching or slapping our hands to our ears–all signs of respect for the guys who never made it back home💖
This weekend we usually go to the Folklife Festival but this year I don’t have the energy. Instead I installed a new outlet at the clinic way too early in the morning!
https://nwfolklife.org/#
That looks like a good time. But my ability to tolerate large crowds is lessening every year.
Facetiously, it is the day it is officially okay to break out the white shoes, accessories, and apparel (“The rule was invented in the nineteenth century by an elite group as a way to use fashion to separate those with money from those without”), and my Mother enforced it, aspirationally.
Respectfully, I remember my Father, who enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and served in two wars before retiring after 23 years. Born in 1918, he was one of the youngest of 15-17 children, depending on how they were counted based on days alive. His father was born in 1878, and this holiday was always known as Decoration day in his family, remembering the war between the states. It was observed with church, hymn singing, and picnics in the church yard while decorating graves with flowers and flags. They often loaded an upright piano on a mule cart to add to the festivities held at the cemetery.
I also remember my most beloved cousin who was killed in Vietnam at age 23, already a Sargent in the Marines. His death was a tragedy for our family.
@Elliecoo–along with your “white apparel” thing, here in “Lakes Country,” this weekend is also the official opener to “Cabin Season” and “Swimming Season”
Some folks will typically start to head up “to the lake” or “to the cabin (or camper)” *before* Memorial Day weekend, to get it all cleaned out, dusted, de-winterized, and ready for a summer of use….
And the folks who swim at those cabin/ campers’ lakes may *sometimes* make their first suited splashes of the lake on Mothers’ Day weekend–or put the docks in that weekend….
But it’s typically only warm enough to swim, in the lower 1/2-2/3rds of the state, starting this weekend…
We typically haven’t had enough warm (70°-80°+) days, WITH enough wind, to get the water “turned over” enough in the lakes to keep folks from getting hypothermia, until the very end of May, sometimes the beginning of June.
Yep! Memorial Day weekend is basically when Lake of the Ozarks opens for tourism and jesus fuck will the traffic be bad going there and back this weekend.
Side note, don’t ever go to Lake of the Ozarks. It’s like Midwest redneck plus Florida Man combined with a lot of STIs and meth.
Hauling a piano to the cemetery! I’m amused and impressed.
I remembered that you lost someone in Viet Nam and he crossed my mind this morning as well. Too many lives cut short.
Thank you @Hannibal. He was a happy life force.
On Remembrance Day when I was Boy Scout, I would be dressed up in my best scout uniform and march in the parade with the veterans. One year, I carried the flag.
As memories fade and I get older, I found much of the symbolism to be crass and irritating. Especially the ads.
I saw this one as a kid (even though it is Veteran’s Day). I get honoring them, but I dislike the loudmouths (usually wingnuts, but not always) fetishizing* the dead and the survivors. The ending meant well, but the episode felt more like the empty flag waving that don’t mean anything in the actual day to day lives of folks.
*what I mean by that is “An object of unreasonably excessive attention or reverence” without question. Leads to many a fake veteran or fake medals or using veterans as a club to beat down things you don’t like (like Colin Kaepernick and his protests against cop violence on black folks.)
@ManchuCandidate, I FEEL ya, on that whole “Pseudo-patriotic Bullshit” thing!!!
Growing up with Dad & both of his brothers, one of their brotthers-in-law, a couple on Mom’s side, and knowing TONS of other WW2, Korea, & Vietnam-era folks allllll being vets who were *around* when I was a kid–plus, being in Girl Scouts, where learning Taps & Flag Code was *a thing,* the “Hurr-Durr, ‘MURICA!!!!” crap (and ESPECIALLY the “If you’re not WITH us, you’re AGAIN’ us!!” crap from the Bush/post 9-11 years!!!🙄🙄🙄), the STUPID “patriotic” show-off-crap during the 7th inning stretch of Baseball games (🙄🤢🤮), and the “Kap & other athletes taking a knee is DISRESPECTFUL!!!” crap *drives me up the wall*
Disrespect, the way *I* was raised, is when a person follows jingoism & pseudo-patriotic displays *simply because of peer pressure*…
When a person goes along with bullshit & fascist ideas & actions, dressed in the trappings of “patriotism,” because it looks good or somehow “glamorous”/covered in “glory”…
And when they go along with asshattery, unquestioningly, just because *someone in a position of authority* declares it “patriotic” for them to do.
Real patriotism QUESTIONS. It demands accountability for lives lost, and public resources spoiled, squandered, & spent unnecessarily.
It never “goes along to get along,” it does the RIGHT thing, even when NO ONE is looking, because that IS the right & respectful thing to do.
And because when you have *actual* patriotism & pride, you have the self-respect to know the difference, and either ignore–or as necessary–call out the bullshitters.
When the veterans would sit down and talk about their experiences, I just listened because I had nothing to add.
One minor thing about some lefties (purity ponies mostly) I never get is the moralizing. I get no one wants a stain on their soul, but speaking as someone who has some dark stains on his soul, we make the decisions we make and they aren’t always the good ones. They did a lot of things that would break minds/bodies, lost friends and did horrible things to survive. Easy to point out how horrible actions look when it not your ass that’s in the middle of it.
My stupid tortured point is that we should always think long and hard about the consequences of action like calling for war etc and a lot of people never do. Once the word is given, we can’t stop it.
Best not to fuck things up by screaming about sales or phony ass reverence or even simple moralizing.
A little attempt at understanding goes a long way.
For me, too, it probably doesn’t hurt that this guy was my Senator, when I was growing up, and this was his first speech on the Senate floor;
https://archive.mpr.org/stories/1991/01/12/paul-wellstone-gulf-war-speech
He never served–he was a college student during Vietnam, but he understood the impact that wars have on people–and especially the folks who can’t get out of the way of one.
He was aGOOD dude, and he worked–as a REAL patriotic American, to try & make the country, and the WORLD, really, a better place for *everyone.*
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/10/09/for-wellstone-iraq-vote-is-risk-but-not-a-choice/114a6ec4-ab43-4cb9-b176-3202fe8d32a2/
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200210/03_zdechlikm_wellstoneiraq/
https://inthesetimes.com/article/paul-wellstones-legacy
…think a lot of that is why I’m partial to that sage francis song I frequently post…well, there are maybe several of those…but I’m thinking of “makeshift patriot”?
Absolutely, we have a lot of lip service here for respecting the troops. Unless the politicians want to yank money intended for housing and schools to build an unnecessary border wall.
Not to mention things like pay for the folks in the lower ranks, childcare, Healthcare, and Veterans’ support services😕
Our country is GREAT at jingoism & lip-service…
But helping folks who need long-term support, once we’ve broken aspects of their lives?
Not so much.
I spent my little mini holiday falling off my bike…
As far as holiday plans go…I’ve had better ones
*Note to self..you are definitely too comfortable on a bike when looking where you are going is no longer a priority to you
Nomally it’s just a long weekend to me and I don’t do anything special with them
At the age of 13, I was so seriously engrossed in a book at the library which I read WHILE I RODE HOME.
I ended up smashing my bike in the back of a parked Lincoln Town Car where there wasn’t one parked before. My sister ended up worse hurt because she fell off her bike laughing as I smeared my face into the back window. I suffered a deflated ego and busted lip while my sister had skinned knees and a bone bruise.
haha..oof!
i wasnt even doing anything….just off in la la land…happilly woolgathering right up until i clipped the curb and turned myself into a man/bike pretzel
it was impressively ditzy
I hope you didn’t get too banged up when you took a tumble.
i’ll be sore for a while and have some impressive bruises…but nothing serious…embarassing more than anything i guess
welp…ill probably pay attention now…least till i stop being sore and forget to again
Apparently every decade and a half or so, the universe has decided that Lil & i have to go through tornado weather & huddle downstairs on the Monday afternoon of Memorial Day🙃
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BuuGTNSZJDrzev7K6
This one just passed over our area a little bit ago…
The weather-radio & cell warnings are still cutting in, and we’re under warnings (tornados *sighted* by law enforcement & first responder/fire crews, not simply “radar-indicated” ones🙃) until at least 5:30 pm (30 more minutes or so).
Just called my bestie, ‘cuz the big one that passed nearby is now headed on up to her area…
She’s on the road, driving home from a function earlier, soooo she’s gonna text me when she gets home, AND we just made plans to make sure we check in with each other later on tonight, too.
Mondays suuuuuck, y’all!
Storms are all over for now, and luckily, *so far* everyone i know made it through ok–there was damage from those tornadoes in this general area, but none of it hit the folks I know/am related to.
Glad you and Lil are safe 🙂