Why be brief?

1. During my growing up years, May 30th was a State holiday called Decoration Day. The holiday was always on the 30th. That was the day we made the pilgrimage to all the cemeteries around to place flowers on the graves of family members and flags on the graves of deceased veterans. School in Soda Springs always ended not later than the day before Decoration Day which made the day even more important. In May 1966 President Lyndon Johnson set the last Monday in May as Memorial Day and the holiday hasn’t been the same since. Now it’s just another three-day weekend with most people no longer associating the day with remembering our war dead.
2. The Big Event associated with that holiday was the Indianapolis 500 race. NASCAR hadn’t been invented and the only other racing to compete with the Indianapolis 500 for TV time was Grand Prix racing with the fall Watkins Glenn Prix being the Big Deal. Today the Indianapolis 500 is a footnote event and Grand Prix has disappeared, I think.
3. A few years ago while on a business trip to Belgium, I took the opportunity to do a driving tour around some of the World War I cemeteries in Belgium. One cemetery I visited was a German cemetery with a very moving sculpture of a father and a mother grieving for their fallen son. That lead me to remember a post about the last cemetery I visited and the graves of soldiers who had died in the last hours of the war. I also posted a number of pictures from Ieper, from the driving tour, and from the American Cemetery in Waregem, Belgium. That caused me to have to go look at the pictures and read the posts once again. So much for trying to be somewhat brief!
4. Nina and I actually tried to go to an Indianapolis 500 race. We were living in Chardon, Ohio and a good friend at the time was a Major Indianapolis 500 Fan. The four of us drove over to Indianapolis and stayed in a crummy motel. We went to the race on Sunday, but the cars made two circuits around the track when the rains came in copious quantities. After a couple of hours of waiting, the race as postponed to the next day. That didn’t work for any of us, so back home we went. Since then the race has been moved to Monday permanently.
5. We spent Memorial Day with our daughter Heather and her family in North Salt Lake. One highlight of the day was swimming in their marvelous pool. Nina got sunburned … I got a bit of color on the top of my head. They have a very nice pool.
6. On Memorial Day morning Nina and I drove to the cemetery where Trevor is buried and where the grave stone also memorializes Traci. I got off at the wrong exit on the freeway which required some back tracking. We got to the cemetery to learn we couldn’t remember exactly where his grave is located. The Really Big Pine Tree by his grave is no longer a Really Big Pine Tree. I’ll claim that as the excuse and I’m sticking to it. This time, though I wrote down the locations as well as made a waypoint in my iPhone with the latitude and longitude. Maybe we’ll have fewer problems next time!
7. Another Memorial Day activity was going to the movie theater to see Night At the Museum Battle of the Smithsonian.  It was a corny, crazy, funny, and satisfying movie. I’d actually like to see it again! The other big movie of the weekend (which was supposed to be the Really Big Deal) was Terminator Salvation, which got tromped by the Night at the Museum comedy. I’ve no interest in the Terminator movie at all. On the other hand, I’m looking forward to seeing Star Trek again!
8. A really stupid event took place in Burma where a guy with no sense at all swam across a lake to “visit” Aung San Suu Kyi, the only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner. That resulted in him being captured and the Burmese government gaining the opportunity to put Kyi on trial and continue her imprisonment. Worse is that the nut case is apparently a Mormon. We’re not imune either to crazies.
9. Bought a bunch of lumber today to use tomorrow to build some garden beds that have been sold. I may come close to breaking even on this venture … no cruise is forthcoming from it, though. Dang!
10. What was supposed to be a fast ten things has turned into a rather lengthy period of time, mostly because I got sidetracked reading from my blog about the WWI cemeteries and looking at my pictures. Now I’m rather nostalgic and am right ready to travel to Europe once again.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!