Remembering ...

Monday is Memorial Day - first called Decoration Day as it spontaneously began when many, many women went out in May 1866 to decorate the graves of the Civil war dead. The time was approximately one year after the parade of the Grand Army in Washington DC to celebrate the Union victory. This day now commemorates all US war dead - those who fell in preserving the nation and freedom. Lincoln's Gettysburg address captures the sentiment perfectly. He modeled parts of it after the Funeral Oration of Pericles, given about 2,300 years before. Here are the words of Abraham Lincoln - they are worth re-reading out loud.

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

***end quote***

Think a bit about the meaning of this on Monday at that BBQ. And fly the flag.

Word of the Day

"Viand" - noun [$10] formal
Viand means 1. an article of food; 2. (in plural) provisions, victuals.
Sentence: As we verily savor our BBD'd viands on Memorial Day, let us remember those for whom the holiday was made to remember - the nation's war dead - whose sacrifices have preserved this nation and our freedom.