TheBanyanTree: Memorial Day

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I like Memorial Day.  It’s one of those holidays I don’t have to anything
special if I don’t want to.  I don’t have to buy gifts.  There isn’t any
particular pressure to spend time with family.  It’s perfectly acceptable
that the weekend can be spent working on projects, such as painting the
house, planting the garden, or building a shed in the backyard.

It’s also acceptable to do pleasurable things on Memorial Day.  If the
weather is nice, like it is for us this year – which is rare, we can ride
bikes, go for hikes, read a book on the deck, or go fishing.  Or just sit
and watch baseball games on TV.

Memorial Day is the gateway to summer.  The green leaves are out in their
glory, the gardens are in full spring bloom, and we’ve already mowed the
lawn a few times.  Swimming pools have sprouted up in backyards around my
neighborhood, even though it hasn’t been really HOT yet.

The parks will be full of picnickers this afternoon.  Those wonderful smells
of burning charcoal, sizzling hamburgers and chicken breasts, and BBQ sauce
will waft through the air.  There have been some college graduations this
weekend and the graduates will try to find jobs to pay off the college
loans.  The school kids know there are only a few more days of their term
left before the long days of summer stretch ahead of them.

I will hang my American flag by my door for the first time this summer.  It
will join the other American flags in the neighborhood.  Behind the joy of
summer celebrations, I do think about our men and women in the service.  My
paternal grandfather fought in WWI and received the Purple Heart.  My
maternal grandfather fought in WWII.  Ray served during the Korean War.  Now
Ray’s grandson is in Afghanistan sending emails about babies being torn
apart by land mines and dying in his arms.

Ray’s grandson, Jimmy, and all the other men and women who are actively
serving in dangerous areas throughout the world are doing the dirty work so
we can have our Memorial Day BBQs.

My thanks to them and my hope that they come home safe.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

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A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun.
Enjoy the trip.

~Author Unknown