Thank God it’s Monday, again. I always look forward to every Monday. They’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you. Therefore, have a happy Monday, as well as a memorable Memorial Day.
DECORATION DAY
Today, is the last Monday in May (for 2025) – as such, it’s also National Memorial Day, which is actually a solace day, rather than a happy one because it is for remembering and honoring all those who died while serving to protect our country.
While I do hope that families are enjoying spending the extra long weekend together, I want to address the very special and real meaning of today’s holiday, as it tends to get lost among the “almost summer” celebrations and activities… Today is meant to remember, honor, memorialize, and celebrate our military members who gave their lives for our freedoms.
Memorial Day (aka: Decoration Day) was established as a U.S. federal holiday in May of 1971, to remember and honor all those who’ve died, serving in our Armed Forces. However, it unofficially originated more than a century prior that, in the spring of 1866, following the end of the American Civil War.
That’s when people began to noticeably honor the war’s fallen soldiers by decorating their grave sites – usually with fresh, spring flowers. There’s a lot of great information (brain food) to be found about the real meaning of Memorial Day at History.com.
HOW TO PROPERLY OBSERVE MEMORIAL DAY
Thanksgiving.com is another website that inspired me with Memorial Day “food for thought”. I found some great ideas and traditions to incorporate into our current, retail marketers’ commercialized celebration promotions, which Memorial Day has come to encompass.
Here are seven thoughts on old traditions that I learned from Thanksgiving.com. In any one of these things (or in all of these things) there’s something that each of us could/should put into practice – starting TODAY – in honor of why we really observe Memorial Day in the first place…
- Visit a cemetery and decorate a veteran’s grave (or many veterans’ graves) with U.S. flags and/or floral wreaths or bouquets.
- Attend a Memorial Day ceremony held at any one of the many designated veterans’ monuments or cemeteries across the country. You’d be surprised at how close one is to you.
- Attend or participate in a local Memorial Day parade that honors all of our veterans.
- Pause for a couple of minutes at 3 p.m. today – in lieu of the National Moment Of Remembrance – to honor the memories and sacrifices of our fallen military members.
- Proudly put a U.S. flag on or in front of your home – and/or any one of the U.S. military branches’ flags and/or the POW’s/MIA’s flag – in honor of their services and sacrifices.
- Recognize and thank our living veterans for their services, as well. Learn about the stories they have of their lost comrades in arms.
- Donate letters, thank you cards, and non-perishable goods to non-profit organizations that are collecting for care packages to send to our troops that are stationed overseas.
Many Americans have come to regard and celebrate this day as being the unofficial start of the summer and, likewise, vacation season. Meanwhile, remembering and honoring our fallen heroes, who died while serving to protect our country, our freedoms, and our Constitution, have become after thoughts to squeeze into the summer celebration.
Commercialism has disguised the holiday into a celebration of summer, which isn’t even officially here, yet, for many more weeks. The official summer solstice for the northern hemisphere is June 20th. The real reason we observe Memorial Day and the old traditions that were once practiced in honor of it have become lost.
Nowadays, vacations and backyard barbeques and picnics abound! These are among the new customs and activities that families usually enjoy this holiday weekend, which generates a burst of patriotic colors, as everything gets decorated in red, white and blue, from sea to shining sea, now through Independence Day.
However, that’s not why Memorial Day is also known as “Decoration Day”. Every fallen military member should be honored, by having their grave sites decorated in spring flowers today. They gave our country life and freedom at the cost of their own. We may celebrate our freedoms but let us never forget at what cost we get to enjoy them.
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 4)
WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS…
WE ALL EXPECT life to be good to us – most of the time. That isn’t too much to ask, now, is it? But when things don’t work out the way we had planned or [as we had] hoped… the tendency is there to feel [that] life gave us lemons.
The best experiences often come out of the biggest disappointments. So, when life gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade – turning a ‘let-down’ into a ‘set-up’… Norman Vincent Peale once said that God never closes a door that he hasn’t opened a window.
But the opportunities that are available to us aren’t always the most obvious when we’re in the throes of self-pity or weary from overwork… You certainly won’t hear opportunity knocking at the front door if you’re in the backyard, looking for four-leaf clovers.
To seize every opportunity to express your very best effort is the kind of motivation with which I grew up and have passed on to our five, now-adult, children.
When they all lined up for this Memorial Day snapshot [in 1969 (above)], before we left to march in the big parade in beautiful, downtown Algonac; little did we know how beautifully our [lives] would turn out…
Thirty-five years ago, on Memorial Day in 1990, Mom did an at-home-interview with CNN Cable News. They even came back the next day to film more about Mom’s life as the Secret RecipesTM Detective, including while she was on the phone, doing a radio show from her home office and kitchen.
I recall it being very sunny and hot that day, as I was six months pregnant with my third child. Some of the family gathered later at Mom and Dad’s house for a smorgasbord of picnic food delights that Mom had whipped up for the CNN crew to film – such as her Kentucky chicken, coleslaw, and biscuits, as well as a variety of picnic salads and finger foods.
I mentioned, in one of my previous blog posts, that Memorial Day is one of those holidays that doesn’t make Wikipedia’s top 10 most celebrated Public Holidays in the United States. For some reason, Americans always like to find ways to “celebrate”, even the most somber of holidays with optimism, happiness, and hope – but most of all with food.
Their production consequently sparked the interest of a weekly, local paper called “The Voice” and a columnist named Pat Heck, who wrote a very complimentary article about Mom; which she mentions in her “Secret Recipes Newsletter” (the September-October 1990 issue – pictured above).
The true reason we observe Memorial Day and the patriotic traditions that were once practiced in honor of it, are getting lost. Many are trying to rectify that. Numerous American towns, both big and small, have erected monuments to honor their own local veteran heroes, who gave all.
Traditionally, they’ll honor their local veterans with special memorial services, placing floral wreaths and small American flags on their graves or on a dedicated monument. Some communities have parades to honor their fallen heroes..
Here, in St. Clair, there’s always a parade downtown at 1:00 p.m. All the local community groups participate – the police and fire departments, the high school band, sports teams, the Scouts; and, of course, our local living veterans. The parade is traditionally followed by a commemorative service, where a wreath is placed at the town’s Veterans’ Memorial.
The service ends with a rendition of “Taps” and participation in the “National Moment of Remembrance” at 3:00 p.m. Afterward, many locals usually observe the rest of the day with pot-luck picnics or family backyard barbecues. By the way, May is National Barbecue Month.
LAST THOUGHTS…
Incidentally, June starts next Sunday; which is National Camping Month and National Great Outdoors Month, among other things. During Michigan’s unofficial summertime [Memorial Day through Labor Day], tourism is always on the rise.
There’s so much to do in Michigan’s great outdoors, May through October, which is the best time for Michigan camping getaways. There are about 1,190 licensed campgrounds in this beautiful state. I love camping. We currently still camp in a tent but, maybe someday, my husband and I will graduate to a camper like Mom and Dad had.
Thanks for visiting! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my memories of my mom, her memories, and other related things. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at therecipedetective@outlook.com. You can also find me on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective.
IN CLOSING…
In honor of May, being National Strawberry Month, AND today, being National Blueberry Cheesecake Day, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for Hancock Inn Cheesecake [with Strawberry or Blueberry Topping]; as seen in… The Original 200 Plus Secret Recipes© Book (Secret RecipesTM, Marysville, MI; June 1997, p. 13). As always, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to re-share it.
P.S. Food-for-thought until next Monday…
May observes… American Cheese Month, Better Speech and Language Month, National Asparagus Month, National Stroke Awareness Month, Older Americans Month, National Egg Month, National Get Caught Reading Month, National Hamburger Month, National Photography Month, National Preservation Month, National Recommitment Month, National Salad Month, National Salsa Month, and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month – among other things.
Tomorrow is… National Grape Popsicle Day.
May 28th is… National Beef Burger Day, National Brisket Day, and National Hamburger Day. Plus, as the last Wednesday in May (for 2025), it’s also… National Senior Health & Fitness Day.
Thursday, May 29th, is… National Coq Au Vin Day.
“Who would want to imitate ‘fast food’ at home? I found that over a million people who saw me demonstrate replicating some famous fast food products on The Phil Donahue Show (July 7, 1981) DID – and their letters poured in at a rate of over 15,000 a day for months on end! And while I have investigated the recipes, dishes, and cooking techniques of ‘fine’ dining rooms around the world, I received more requests from people who wanted to know how to make things like McDonald’s Special Sauce or General Foods Shake-N-Bake coating mix or White Castle’s hamburgers than I received for those things like Club 21’s Coq Au Vin.” – Gloria Pitzer, Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – Best Of The Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 7). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
Friday, May 30th, is… National Creativity Day, National Water a Flower Day, and National Mint Julep Day.
Saturday, May 31st, is… National Macaroon Day, National Utah Day, and National Smile Day.
Sunday kicks off the month of June, which observes… National Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month, National Candy Month, National Camping Month, National Caribbean American Month, National Country Cooking Month, National Dairy Month, National Great Outdoors Month, National Iced Tea Month, National Papaya Month, National Soul Food Month, and National Rose Month – among other things.
June 1st is also… National Olive Day, National Say Something Nice Day, National Pen Pal Day, and National Hazelnut Cake Day. Plus, as the first Sunday in June (for 2025), it’s also… National Cancer Survivor’s Day. Additionally, as the start of the first full week in June, it’s also… National Gardening Week and Community Health Improvement Week.
Have a great week!
…21 down and 31 to go.
