"Happy" Memorial Day

[Stinky The Clown]

(My annual rant. Thanks for reading it if you choose. No problem if you don't.)

"Happy" Memorial Day

Does that grate on anyone else's nerves as it does on mine?

Memorial Day is a day to think about people who died in our wars. Memorial Day was conceived as solemn. The car dealers and furniture stores, resorts and rug merchants made it into something festive. Falling as it does in late Spring, it is also the "unofficial start of Summer."

Our local news was yammering about traffic heading to the beach. The Bridge was experiencing slower than normal traffic due some lane closure or other. Hours long backups. The national news is talking about similar issues, but obviously not our local traffic. Not a memorial in sight.

This day is to reflect on one significant aspect of war: Dead People. Mostly young people just entering the prime of their lives. People who, in serving this country, had their lives ended. Often violently.

That's what this day is about.

Not hamburgers on the grill or play shovels and pails at the beach.

This image seems to be at least one that is appropriate.



Thanks for listening. Here is the Clown, ca 1968. I feel eternally grateful that Memorial Day isn't about me. I never got near a bullet fired or a bomb dropped with the specific intent to kill me:

[Cooley Hurd]

1. What ship was that, Stinky?

...and recommended your post.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. It long ago was converted to the USS Razor Blades . . . :)

When I was aboard, it was the USS Pandemus, ARL18. Minesweeper repair ship. I was on her through her decommissioning and until the tugs hauled her away to the breakers.

She was a converted WWII LST.

[Cooley Hurd]

5. That's very cool! Great re-use of an old LST.

Have you been to LST-325? She's now a museum ship in Evansville, IN.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_LST-325

Thank you again for your post and, of course, for your service.

[Siwsan]

3. Memorial Day was always treated with solemn respect, in our family

We have been fortunate to have not lost anyone, physically, to any recent war, and my family has served in the military, pretty much every generation, since the 1700s. But, neither of my uncles who served in active combat during the 2nd world war came back the same as when they left and both died far earlier than the siblings who were non-combat veterans or non-military. The few details they would talk about were so horrible, I can't begin to imagine the experiences they kept to themselves.

[cherokeeprogressive]

4. While I understand the post, I've never heard anyone wish another person Happy Memorial Day. n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Have you no well meaning friends who wished you a happy holiday weekend this week?

Virtually every client I spoke to wished me one. All very well meaning and I, in being polite, wished them one in return. <---just a single example

Have you not heard your teevee noozreaders wishing the viewers a fun holiday weekend? <---just a single example

I hear it everywhere. <---illustratively hyperbolic

You must be so very fortunate not to hear it.

[cherokeeprogressive]

10. No well meaning friends... TV nooz readers? No. Spent last evening in a bar, didn't hear it once.

Maybe it was out there somewhere, and maybe I just didn't hear it. I guess I am fortunate as you say.

[pinboy3niner]

21. A stranger said that to me at a store checkout Sunday evening

He was the customer in front of me in line, and he just started chatting--opening with "Happy Memorial Day."

[mopinko]

7. makes me nuts, too.

and if you say anything, you will get an answer that will make you twice as nuts.
i'm thinking maybe the proper response is to make the sign of the cross and bow your head. (said the devout atheist)

[CrispyQ]

8. Memorial Day Weekend has been commercialized to be the kick-off to summer.

Labor Day Weekend is the end of summer.

You can feel it in the air, on a Friday before a three day weekend, especially in nice weather. I swear you can. There is a sizzling energy all about. I don't remember that so much when I was young. Of course, we hadn't moved most of the holidays to Monday back then, either. Not sure if that has anything to do with it, but it seems to have taken the holiday & packaged it up with the weekend & now the weekend is the focus, not the holiday.

If "The Fourth of July" were more commonly called "Independence Day," it would be moved to a Monday, too.

There must be as much opportunity as possible, for profit to be made on holidays.


"I feel eternally grateful that Memorial Day isn't about me." Us, too.

[MiddleFingerMom]

9. I hear you. I kinda feel that way, too... but in an odd and ironic sort of parallel...

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... you're complaining about "THE WAR ON MEMORIAL DAY".
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Happy Holidays.
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[Morning Dew]

11. General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868

General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868




The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated 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 church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from hishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.


It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.

Department commanders will use efforts to make this order effective.
By order of

JOHN A. LOGAN,
Commander-in-Chief

N.P. CHIPMAN,
Adjutant General

Official:
WM. T. COLLINS, A.A.G.

[monmouth3]

12. Well, hello Sailor!......

[Skittles]

14. I gotta tell you

Stinky rivals the best of the sailors I used to fraternize with at Great Lakes Naval station when I was in high school; yes INDEED

[Stinky The Clown]

15. I went to boot camp at Great Lakes.

Colder than a well digger's ass!

I went from there in January to walking guard duty guarding absolutely NOTHING at Newport, RI, for A school. The wind whipping in off Naraganset Bay was just about as bad as any cold wind off Lake Michigan.

The only good part of any of that was the fact that Newport was only a coupe of hours from home. I got home every weekend except my duty weekends.

[Skittles]

17. yup that's where I got my dates (Helms Club)

to heck with the high school boys - sailors were SO MUCH FUN - heck, one time I swam from the Navy Pier to the Aquarium with a sailor so toasted I ended up dragging him in. I was 17!!!

[Skittles]

13. MEMORIAL DAY PARTY

saw that in the Dallas Observer

[Nye Bevan]

16. Never, ever in my life have I heard anyone say "Happy Memorial Day".

"Happy Easter"? Yes.
"Happy Good Friday"? Never.
"Happy Thanksgiving"? Absolutely.
"Happy Washington's Birthday"? Never.
"Happy Martin Luther King's Birthday"? Never.
"Happy Memorial Day"? Also never.

Could it be a regional thing?

[adicortez]

18. Makes you think

As a result of this thread, I've decided to protest the only way we do nowadays: On facebook. In a passive agressive manner I refuse to post Happy Memorial Day.

[Sparkly]

19. I must say...

Stinky the Clown is still totally adorable, in his own inimitable fashion...

[moondust]

20. Same here, Stinky.

A day of solemnity.


Daylight again
Following me to bed
I think about a hundred years ago
How my father's bled

I think I see a valley
Covered with bones in blue
All the brave soldiers that cannot get older
Been asking after you

Hear the past a' calling
From Armageddon's side
When everyone's talking and no one is listening
How can we decide

Do we find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down

CSNY