And so it begins again, already. Armadas of SUVs filled with fun lovers and sun lovers and loaded to the max with all the necessary stuff to do the bumper-to-bumper crawl down the Expressway to the shore. It’s Memorial Day Weekend, the flag flapping unofficial start of summer but the official start of summer isn’t found on the calendar but on the blissfully happy faces of kids racing out of school for their summer break.
At the shore, the salty sea air and the call of the gulls offer a rejuvenating welcome as the surf and sand beckon. This ritual of enjoying lazy days by the sea is often a family legacy sometimes decades old yet somehow always new and promising. After a warm sunny day (hopefully) of sunning and swimming, a leisurely stroll on the boardwalk stopping here and there to fill stomachs with favorite treats shortly before churning them up on favorite rides a makes all the frosty mornings and slushy roads of winter easily forgotten.
But this is a holiday dedicated to remembrance. A time for all of us to reflect with gratitude and reverence upon all those selfless heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice and bravely fought and died far from home and loved ones so that all Americans would always have freedom, liberty and equality. Let us give honor and pay tribute to these noble lives by not allowing the dangerously dividing differences and disagreements in our lives to deplete our mutual respect and diminish our humanity. We owe it to them and to each other.
George DeGeorge.
