This is the day set aside as a national holiday to remind us that many Americans have died in wars over the years.
The holiday began as Decoration Day shortly after the end of the Civil War to commemorate Union soldiers who perished in that terrible conflict. The name was changed to Memorial Day after World War I and so it remains today.
In the beginning, Americans honored their dead by placing flowers at the graves of the deceased. Something seems to have been lost over the years.
My neighbor is celebrating by hammering, nailing, and sawing boards, interspersed with the sounds of a drill and a blower. Maybe he’s building a monument.
Facebook is celebrating by performing maintenance on my account. They’ve apparently been celebrating intermittently for a week or so based on the many notifications and abject apologies I receive when trying to sign in. Oddly, Facebook seem to celebrate none of my acquaintances. I feel privileged.
And millions of individual Americans will celebrate by whipping out credit cards and taking advantage of Memorial Day sales, perhaps on the assumption that a part of the price of their purchases will go to the Army and Navy Relief funds.
At Lake Havasu, a goodly number of virtually-naked women will bob up and down in fiberglass boats to the adoring looks of squadrons of equally semi-naked males, while deputy sheriffs wait for an opportunity to quell a fracas so they can get an up close and personal look at the cellulite.
Hordes of politicians will visit national cemeteries where they will orate in glowing terms and sweeping phrases about sacrifice and patriotism, adjourning thereafter to the air-conditioned comfort of their country clubs. I feel a little bit of acid reflux spilling out at the thought of these annual rituals.
Quite a few people who have actually lost loved ones in a war will visit their graves not so much to honor them but to cry futilely for their return. Their faces will twist with an agony so palpable that we want to cry with them.
In reality, Memorial Day is a day of grief and sadness for millions of Americans. Nowhere is that grief and agony so evident as in the face of Cindy Sheehan.
