Memorial Day Weekend! It’s the start of summer movie season and a little bit more.
Time stands still for no one. Memorial Day comes around toward the end of May every year. Americans celebrate with backyard barbecues and the beginning of Summer Blockbuster Movie season. We have some really good movies out right now (Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Pirates of the Caribbean 5) and some that are kind of …interesting (Alien Covenant, Baywatch). But Memorial Day started as Decoration Day in the years following the U. S. Civil War. Memorial Day began as a time when the widows of soldiers who died in the Civil War went to clean and decorate the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers in burial sites near their towns and communities. Memorial Day began as a day to remember those soldiers (sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen) who died fighting for every American’s freedom and way of life, and the freedom many, many others.
When we were kids, on Memorial Day there were the barbecues and maybe a ceremony or parade. The high school marching band and the Veterans of Foreign Wars would march down Main Street and play patriotic music. For my generation we had Star Wars and Superman movies to see (or see again). More recently movies like X-Men films, Indian Jones sequels and Marvel movies have dominated the Memorial Day weekend box office.
Now that I have classmates who have died in the recent wars, and I have friends and fellow graduates who lost husbands, wives, fiancés, children, siblings….My perspective has changed. Some people will spend a good chunk of time this weekend bringing their children, nephews and nieces to the military cemetery, or war monuments, to honor departed fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, loved-ones and friends. Others will barbecue and go to the movies. I think our relatives and friends who died for our freedom and way of life, would want us to do all of these and more, but do it to honor their memory.
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