How to enjoy Memorial Day

Hi neighbors.

Monday will be Memorial Day. Of course, if you want to wait, Friday the 30th will also be Memorial Day. I don't think your boss will give you both days off as the Memorial Day holiday. You may not get to choose which one to "count" as your Memorial Day celebration.

Either way you do get to count the official Memorial Day, May 26, as a legal holiday. You can choose to call May 30th your own personal Memorial Day if you feel better doing that.

It's rather like my uncle who hated Daylight Savings Time and would always say what time the clock said, then add, "but the real time is ..."

Memorial Day was created by the government, and can be changed to whatever day the government determines works best.

Memorial Day isn't the only holiday moved around to make a longer weekend for (primarily and originally) government employees. These so-called Monday legal holidays co-exist with traditional holidays. If you work Monday through Friday, having a Monday off makes for a nice change in routine.

Maybe if you work two jobs you can convince one boss that you want the legal holiday off, and convince the other one that you are a traditionalist and want the "real" holiday off on Friday.

That way you can have two days when you only have to work one job. Sounds like a lot of pre-planning to me.

If you do get a day off, how will you spend that extra time?

Most people spend some time visiting their passed loved one's graves and decorating them with flowers and other mementos. This is my usual trek each year. My family have markers (cemetery, not gambling) in Cedar, Dade, Polk and Vernon counties in Missouri. I also have family buried in Sedgwick County in Kansas. I usually don't travel much, but if I did I would have ancestors to visit in Greene, Morgan, Scott and Roan counties in Tennessee as well as others in Stark County, Ohio. I can imagine family buried in almost every state of the union. That's kind of a comforting thought.

I always check out epitaphs in any cemetery I go to visit. It doesn't matter if the person was a relative or not. Some epitaphs are sentimental, some speak of religious beliefs, others are just silly.

There is one old gent who may or may not be related to me, but his epitaph is certainly well known in certain circles.

Some words have been changed to protect my reputation, since his is long past protecting. He wrote his own epitaph to make certain no one else misquoted his words.

EPITAPH -- Colonel Ezekiel Polk, grandfather of James K. Polk, President of the United States of America.

Here lies the dust of old E.P., One instance of mortality.

Pennsylvania born, Carolina bred, In Tennessee died upon his bed.

His youthful days were spent in pleasure, His later days in gathering treasure.

From superstition lived quite free, And practiced strict morality.

To holy cheats was never willing To give one solitary shilling.

He can forsee -- and forseeing He equals most men in being --

That Church and State will join their power, And misery on their country shower;

The (one certain Christian denomination named), with their camp-brawlings,

Will be the cause of this downfalling;

An error not destined to see, He waits for poor posterity.

First fruits and tenths are odious things, And so are bishops, tithes and kings.

Besides just visiting the dead in the cemeteries, plan some time to visit the living. Many families have picnics that include several generations.

These times together are priceless; and much more fun than writing one's own epitaph.