THE LAST MONDAY IN MAY

Today was the day the boat poles went in on Pontoon Row, the dock where the pontoon boats of our community are secured.
The boats are tied to the poles.

The Kayla Elise, The Study’s pontoon boat, should go in the water tomorrow, barring strong winds or rain.

It was bright and sunny and windy and festive.

An opening rite of spring!

The birthday of Joel, owner of The Mole Hole, was celebrated today as well, with pizza for five of us at the local pub.
We buy our fishing licenses at the bar and today the house bought the birthday lad a drink and we loved the place even more than ever.

You can buy liscenses at the barber shop in town as well.

And tomorrow is Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, the day Americans are asked to honor those men and women who died whilst serving in the Armed Forces of the United States.

Wikipedia has a fine article explaining the history.

Check it out.

You will find some good ideas about how to “…honor those men and women….”

You can visit a cemetery; view a parade; attend or give a barbecue; observe a moment of silence at 3:00PM; or do whatever else seems appropriate to you.

Or you can do nothing special.

That’s the nice thing about the United States.

One custom that is particularly attractive to us at The Study is the selling of the red poppy by the American Veterans of Foreign Wars during the week before the holiday weekend.

It is an especially attractive custom to us because it is a practice common in the UK and the British Commonwealth as well to honor the military dead of those nations.

The poppy is the flower of choice, of course, because of the poem, In Flanders Fields, written by a military physician shortly after the death of a friend in WW1.

The poem:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place;and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

What shall we do tomorrow to honor the men and women who have ‘given the last full measure’?

We will pause at 3:00PM for moments of silence and prayer.

And we will thank God for the survival of the Nation made possible by the sacrifices of “those who gave their tomorrows for our todays”.