May 27, 2011
Good morning from Collegeville,
Monday we will celebrate Memorial Day. This national holiday commemorates the men and women who have died in military service to their country. The first “Decoration Day” was celebrated in 1865 by liberated slaves at the historic race track in Charleston, West Virginia. The official birthplace of Decoration Day is Waterloo, New York where they honored those who had died in the Civil War on May 5, 1866. The alternative name of “Memorial Day” was first used in 1882, but did not become common until after WW II. (source: Wikipedia”)
When I was a youngun in Upsala, we always had a Memorial Day service at the school and a parade down Main Street. Sometime after I left town in 1961, the practice died out. Then in the eighties, Lorna Koehn, a member of the American Legion Auxiliary, brought back the Memorial Day celebration in Upsala. I can still picture her marching in front of a group of children holding bunches of lilacs. One of the local civic clubs added the offering of a picnic lunch at City Park where they serve grilled hamburgers and rhubarb pie with ice cream. The children still wait in eager anticipation for the chance to collect the spent brass shells after the 21 gun salute. They make good whistles.
One of the more stressful ceremonies at the school took place the year that they invited Father Tony Kroll to be the speaker. Sometime years before, Father Tony had been jailed for climbing over the fence at Honeywell in Minneapolis to protest their involvement in making war instruments. Tony is still doing his thing. A few Saturdays back he was on the side of Division Street next to Barnes and Nobel with anti-war signs. Memorial Day is not anti or pro war. It is about the men and women who served their country.
Be sure to take the time to honor those in your life who have passed on. If you happen to meet a service member, simply say “Thank you for serving”. They deserve our respect no matter what your position is on war.
The show this week is a live performance from the Filene Center at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia. Special guests include the American roots trio The Wailin Jennys, humorist Roy Blount Jr, tenor Paul Appleby and vocalist Andra Suchy. Here in central Minnesota you can enjoy the show on Saturday from 5 PM to 7 PM on both the classical and the news networks. The show will be rebroadcast on Sunday at 11 AM on the news network including KNSR 88.9 from Collegeville.
” It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
Category : General 