After all the rain, this beautiful morning is welcome. The bright green leaves are brilliant in the brightness of the sun. The flowers in the front yard, the blues and the whites, are striking. It is already 71°. I can taste summer.

When I was a kid, a day like today was my favorite sort of day. Walking to school in the warmth of the sun gave me the energy to face the grueling day ahead. I remember the trees with their overhanging branches filled with leaves. The houses along the sidewalk were old. Some had porches. Ivy climbed the walls. Along the way there were still railroad tracks crossing the road and continuing out of sight on both sides of the road. We used to jump over them. I remember the station master’s house. I always thought it would have been a great place to live. I’d get to hear the trains pass and watch the bar come down to stop the cars. On one side of the street was a long grass hill, part of the landscaping of the old brick high school. Before we got to our school, we could see part of the convent, the little building with the stone front. The convent was huge with so many windows in the front. We knew those windows were in the nuns’ rooms. I always imagined those rooms were stark with a bed, a bureau and a cross on the wall. Across the street from the convent was my school.

When I graduated from the eighth grade, we had a class picture taken. We sat in front of the convent. Many years later I found that picture. It was rolled, and the picture cracked when I unrolled it. I decided I wanted to save it so I took it to a photography shop where a copy was made and mounted for hanging. I see it every day. It is over the sink in my downstairs bathroom. That probably sounds like an odd spot for a school picture, but my bathroom has sorts of school stuff including a small rolled desk where I keep soap and hand towels. The room even has a blackboard. Ding Dong school artifacts are on the side of the sink and under the blackboard. On the walls are old class pictures and diplomas I bought. I don’t know anyone in the pictures or any of the names on the diplomas. I chose the school theme as something unexpected for the bathroom.

I have to miss my concert today to take Henry to the vet’s to check his leg, but not to worry, I have two more concerts this week and the usual practice and lesson. Uke events again are the only entries on my dance card.

For special days, I have traditional postings. This is one of them. 

Memorial Day is a day for reflection and a day to give thanks. It is a day for honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military, those who gave, as President Lincoln once said, their “…last full measure of devotion.” This is my annual tribute. 

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. It originated during the American Civi War when citizens placed flowers on the graves of those who had been killed in battle. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead.” 

While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860′s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in General Logan, Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, giving his official proclamation in 1868 designating May 30 as a memorial day “.. for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.” It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.