Memorial Day Weekend

To the news reporters, this is the beginning of summer. Well we remember in by-gone years when it was all "recreation". But times change and one's perspective changes. Today, I often think of the men and women off in foreign lands carrying the flag of our country. It is a price that many who have gone before have paid and we need to never forget it.

I've recently read two books on WWII, one on the North African campaign and one about moving cross Europe. Those of us that have never seen the bloody fields of battle find it hard to appreciate the pain and suffering so many of our veterans endured. But they did endure and the survivors came home to build a better America.

At our recent class reunion, I had the opportunity to visit for sometime with two AFROTC classmates. (One served in Viet Nam, I served stateside and one was declared 4-F.) During the course of the conversation, the subject of how Lt. William Calley was treated came up. We all agreed that great injustices were done and worst of all, they prosecuted the wrong man.. Lt. Calley was the fall guy for a number of senior leaders. Historically, the winner prosecutes the losers leadership for war crimes. When crimes have been done by the winning forces, the blame is always pushed to the lowest level of leadership, usually the poor grunt in the field!

It has been a delightful week here on the farm. The weather has been warm (Sandy says HOT) and the grass has been growing like a weed. We finally have the lawn trimmed down to where it looks kind of decent. Now to keep it that way.

Yesterday, we decided to get really serious about replacing our Saturn towed car. Serious means that we pulled the tow bar base plate off of it. It is a bummer, a $300 item, with probably zero salvage value. But now they can't deduct on the trade in value since they would remove it. I was reassured that it was a good installation, as the bolts were so tight that I had extreme trouble getting them loose. We are replacing it with a Honda CR-V we think.. One thing is for certain, I've got to get serious now that we've removed the ability to tow the Saturn.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day. Let us not forget it.

Gene