My Memorial Day
I can’t believe the weekend is already here. How quickly a week goes by when you are out of town for two days of it! And I didn’t work at the “office” today either, so it really was a short work week. Just the way I like it!
I wanted to backtrack a little bit to my trip to Amarillo and our wonderful Memorial Day. I’ll skip all the travel troubles on the way up on Sunday (which began with waking up at 10 a.m. when I needed to be leaving the house at 10 a.m.).
Monday, Memorial Day, dawned bright and windy in Amarillo. A beautiful spring day. The night before had been full of hail and rain and tornadoes all around us in the Panhandle. Quite exciting! But Monday was clear and calm (well, except for the wind) and beautiful. Mom and my sister Mackie had driven up the day before and I flew up. I had arrived earlier than they did, so I had already had a good visit with my Aunt Dorothy.
We went to Aunt Dorothy’s for lunch. You should be well acquainted with her family from my entry about Trent’s graduation just a week before when they were all in Waco for the festivities. But they were happy to throw another party for us in Amarillo because they are great party throwers and great cooks, every one of them. I always have to take a picture of the beautiful table at Aunt Dorothy’s because it is always so elegant, even with paper plates.
The kids are ready to dig in. I don’t blame them. From top to bottom we have a big plate of donuts, a casserole of oat meal and fruit, French toast, monkey bread, a ham and hashbrowns and cheese casserole, an egg and sausage casserole, and fruit. Nothing like a light breakfast!
These are the same kids you saw at their uncle’s graduation and Ph.D. ceremony at Baylor. AnnaBeth, Alex, and Jonathan.
They had the day off from school so they could be with us. I got to see Jonathan the next morning at home since he is only 5 and will start kindergarten in the fall, but the others had gone to school for the last week or so. Here they are, still yearning for that good food.
They weren’t the only kids on hand. My cousin Heather dropped in, too, with her baby girl Sidney. I am always flattered because my aunt (and lots of that family) will interchange my name and Heather’s name, confusing us with one another and saying that Heather always reminds them of me. That is high praise because she is a doll and has the sharpest wit. Plus she’s really really smart. This is not the greatest picture because of the bad photographer and the moving target, but it is Heather.
Sidney deserves a better picture though, because she is a beautiful child that like to say “outside” a lot!
We had a wonderful gathering and lots of laughs and fun and then Mother and Mackie and I went to the cemetery for a Memorial Day service honoring veterans. Daddy was a Korean war veteran and served in the US Air Force and he is buried in a new section of the cemetery called the Field of Valor. They had a very nice service for Memorial Day. This is where we were, because if you can find a tree in the Panhandle (and they are all planted, they are not native), you take advantage of it. Have you ever seen a flatter landscape?
But the ceremony was this other direction. Notice the wind blowing the flags straight out. The storm the night before had destroyed a lot of the large flags they had on display in the cemetery and there were leaves and branches strewn across most of it.
There was a nice flyover (several, in fact), too.
We did some grave visiting while we were in the cemetery. That is what Memorial Day is for, after all. At one time I lived in Amarillo with two great roommates, Diane and Beth. Beth’s parents are buried in the same cemetery as Daddy and I finally found their graves. I knew them both well when they were alive. Diane’s mother died before I knew her, but she is also buried there so I checked on her grave since Diane lives in San Antonio now. My Uncle Homer and my grandparents (Mother’s parents) are also buried in this cemetery, so we visited them all. Mackie had come prepared with flowers and flags for everyone’s graves.
Next we went across town to the other cemetery and visited Daddy’s parents graves, my dear cousin Judy who died in December, and my older brother who died as a baby.
Through with the cemetery visits, Mom and Mackie took me to my friend Sandy’s so she and I could go visit Jamey and have a mini-college reunion. This is Sandy’s sweet cat at her front door.
Sandy and I visited Jamey at his radio remote (add that to my list of why I’m glad I’m not in radio— remotes on holidays!). Later we had dinner with my mother and then we stopped in to see my cousin Larry for a bit. A really good day with lots of great visits and lots of people to see and lots of good people to remember fondly.