Memorial Day

 

Memorial Day is being officially observed here in the United States today.  Ceremonies, honoring active, retired and those service people who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country, were held  during the course of the weekend in many different towns and cities.  An earlier term for today used to be Decoration Day when a lot of families made up bouquets of flowers and took them to the cemetery in remembrance of loved ones who had passed.  There were pictures on the nightly news a little while ago showing all the flags placed at Arlington National Cemetery which is a moving sight.  So many lives lost in war!

My father served in the Navy in WWII and a niece and nephew (sister and brother) are currently both actively serving our country in the military.  Mr P's brother retired from the Army a number of years ago.  I have always considered myself "rooted" here, living less than 25 miles from where I was raised and where my Mom and three of my five sibling still live.  Whenever we would visit with my brother-in-law (Mr P's brother) and his wife, my sister-in-law while he was serving in the Army, it always hit me how transient their lives were with a move every few years.  As much as I like to see new places and want to travel in retirement, I was always glad that I was "rooted" here in central Pennsylvania.  I always tried to let my sister-in-law know how much I appreciated that they were willing, as a family, to be uprooted every few years with each new assignment.  One of her favorite statements used to be "If they Army wanted you to have a family, they would have issued you one."  In other words, when duty called, my brother-in-law went no matter what was going on at home.

Where did the weekend go?  Saturday was spent doing a lot of the chores that are usually done over the weekend due to working during the week.  Preparations began on Saturday in anticipation of a small cookout on Sunday afternoon with some of the family.  My Mom, sister's J and K and their husbands, B and D came down for hot dogs and burgers on the grill.  There was some cutthroat pinochle card playing too. 

I know others around the country haven't been so fortunate with flooding and tornados occuring in some states but our weather has been absolutely gorgeous this weekend.  While it was hot today, a breeze was moving the air around making things comfortable.  Someone is coming to paint the detached garage tomorrow making it necessary for us to rake up some leaves and generally clean up around the garage. We also weeded the entire garden and I need to plant some eggplant and Swiss chard plants and some beets seeds yet.  I won't get to those tomorrow evening but maybe on Wednesday evening. 

Hope you have had a nice weekend wherever you are.  Have a good week and in less than a week we will be in June.