{"id":4429,"date":"2017-05-29T01:38:09","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T05:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/?p=4429"},"modified":"2017-05-29T01:40:30","modified_gmt":"2017-05-29T05:40:30","slug":"memorial-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/memorial-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of my favorite things about the\u00a0Convivio Book of Days<\/em>\u00a0is when a reader shares with the rest of us their own traditions or\u00a0memories in the comments section. To get any comments at all is a wonderful thing, as comments help us writers see that\u00a0folks are actually reading and engaging. But I learn so much from you when you share what you do in your family or what you remember doing when you were a kid. And last\u00a0year, in the comments section of the blog chapter for Memorial Day, Convivio pal Marilyn Pancoast wrote her memory of the\u00a0day:<\/p>\n

When I was young it was called Decoration Day and all the family’s and friend\u2019s graves were cleaned and then decorated\u00a0with flowers. Then in the late afternoon there was a parade and a ceremony after dusk. Someone, many times me, would\u00a0play taps and small candlelit flower boats were released into the river. There was one for each soldier and sometimes\u00a0more for others. The ceremonies and activities were quite moving and a way to involve and teach each new generation.<\/em><\/p>\n

I think Marilyn sums up this day beautifully and I hope that someone on some river is still doing what she did when she was\u00a0young. This is the day we remember our fallen heroes, those who gave their lives in service to their country. Memorial Day (or some version of it) is celebrated not\u00a0just here in the United States, but in\u00a0other countries, as well, and usually at this time of year, a tradition that harkens back to\u00a0Ancient Rome. Our own Memorial\/Decoration Day traditions in this country go back to the Civil War era. The original\u00a0date, May 30, was chosen for it was believed that flowers for decorating graves would be in bloom in every state of the Union\u00a0on that date. It’s since been moved to the last Monday of May. This year it falls on the 29th, which happens to be the same\u00a0date as my mom and dad’s wedding anniversary. Those two good looking kids from Brooklyn tied the knot at St. Blaise\u00a0Church on May 29, 1949\u2013\u2013the Sunday, that year, of Memorial Day weekend. Today would have been their 68th wedding anniversary, but it’s\u00a0the first time we honor the day without Dad’s physical presence. That will make for a bittersweet day, I know, but Memorial Day is\u00a0kind of like this. It is our unofficial start of summer here in the US, but a somber one if we honor the day in its proper\u00a0tradition. And so we decorate, and we remember. Flowers for remembrance, and flowers beckoning summer and the gentle\u00a0time of year.<\/p>\n

Image: Decoration Day. Photographic print from glass negative, 1917. From the George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) [public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite things about the\u00a0Convivio Book of Days\u00a0is when a reader shares with the rest of us their own traditions or\u00a0memories in the comments section. To get any comments at all is a wonderful thing, as comments help us writers see that\u00a0folks are actually reading and engaging. But I learn so much from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[140,93,196],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4429"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4429"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4441,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4429\/revisions\/4441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}