esrosedotblog

NO MAIL

It is Monday afternoon and I have had enough of the long weekend. Capped off by no mail.

Memorial is OK. People say "Happy Memorial Day"? Huh? It isn't supposed to be happy is it?

When I was a kid it was a half a school day and on the day that it fell. Not a Monday holiday. We went in and there was a parade. We marched or were bussed to a local graveyard.

Two guys from the Township had been killed in the war and so, every year, there was a kind of special tribute to them. Our only dead heroes.

There were a lot of live heroes like my Dad who wore the war with him until his last day. But we went after the dead ones.

A part of every celebration was the recitation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

I got the honor one year. It was my first realization that I was not good at memorization. A tendency to improvise.

But I think I got through the whole thing pretty well.

Memorial Day is a holiday without any fun attached to it. Not that Martin Luther King Day is a recreational bonanza.

A little later today there will be a parade in town and we will get a fly over. Or maybe that is Veterans Day.

I suppose all my reflexes are wrong or not working around holidays because except for the big ones it was likely that I would be traveling to some job where I needed to be there the night before. Setup and sleep.

So holidays kind of blended in with other days.

It will be over soon and I can move on.