Memorial Day.Mae Mae went to Houston to see her Mom.

At 7.30AM I gave MaeMae a bath, and fluff-brush-dried her to make her all fluffy and pretty. She is going to Houston to see her "Mom", Claudia, with Leo and Jay. I trimmed up her face and top-knot a little. I wish I had taken a picture before she left at 8.35.

I have already heard the sirens of EMS vehicles going down the road behind my house to one of the marinas down there. The Three-Day Weekend Warriors are at it again, foolin' around on the lake. I can smell different BBQ's and their fixins'. But today is not so much a holiday as a Day Of Remembrance.
Our family is fortunate. We haven't lost a family member in battle since my grandmother's brother got killed in WW1. My father survived the RAF,(Royal Air Force), my stepfather (British Army), came back shell-shocked in WWII. My oldest son, (British Army) was in the Falkland Islands Fiasco, and is now fine in England. My ex made it through Nam, (US Army), but it did have a bad effect on him. My late DH, (US Army) made it through Korea. But today is for remembering those who have fallen.

""Memorial Day
For this Memorial Day, we decided to acknowledge the man credited with starting the day, General John A. Logan. From Wikipedia: Memorial Day.
The official birthplace of Memorial Day is Waterloo, New York. The village was credited with being the birthplace because it observed the day on May 5, 1866, and each year thereafter, and because it is likely that the friendship of General John Murray, a distinguished citizen of Waterloo, and General John A Logan, who led the call for the day to be observed each year and helped spread the event nationwide, was a key factor in its growth.
General Logan had been impressed by the way the South honored their dead with a special day and decided the Union needed a similar day. Reportedly, Logan said that it was most fitting; that the ancients, especially the Greeks, had honored their dead, particularly their heroes, by chaplets of laurel and flowers, and that he intended to issue an order designating a day for decorating the grave of every soldier in the land, and if he could he would have made it a holiday.
Logan had been the principal speaker in a citywide memorial observation on April 29, 1866, at a cemetery in Carbondale, Illinois, an event that likely gave him the idea to make it a national holiday. On May 5, 1868, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans' organization, Logan issued a proclamation that "Decoration Day" be observed nationwide. It was observed for the first time on May 30 of the same year; the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of a battle. The tombs of fallen Union soldiers were decorated in remembrance of this day. ...
The alternative name of "Memorial Day" was first used in 1882, but did not become more common until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967. On June 28, 1968, the United States Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which moved four holidays from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend. ""
Related links:History Channel: Memorial Day U.S. Memorial Day History

http://dc.about.com/od/specialeventphotos1/ig/Rolling-Thunder-Pictures/er-Pictures/

You have freedom because of those who served for you.

I hope that everyone is having a very safe day.