A MEMORIAL DAY STORY

There's a story of Memorial Day on Wikipedia that blew me away. It seems, according to a professor David Blight of Yale University, that freed slaves from the South were the first to observe Memorial Day. They did this by going to a Union soldier's mass gravesite in Charleston, North Carolina, digging up their remains and re-interring them in individual graves. They then placed a sign proclaiming it as a Union soldiers graveyard.

Imagine this for a moment, someone actually thought this up. To dig up dead bodies that have been dead for a few years. Then separate the corpses and bury them in separate graves. This is crazy. And then,he, or she, probably a he, told others this cockamamie idea. And they went along with it. In other words, other people thought it was a good idea too. This, in and of itself, is an amazing thing to me. And to top it off, they did this in the South, where memories were still fresh in the minds of many people in the area about Union soldiers killing their Confederate comrades and destroying their home towns.

I can just imagine some of these former Confederates harrassing the former slaves about digging up the enemy and giving them a proper burial. Where the memorial part began was that a few years later, in 1868, they went back to the graves and decorated the graves with flowers. Memorial Day first began as Decoration Day. It also was first a memorial for Union soldiers, but then it expanded to all other soldiers as well.

I usually don't think twice about Memorial Day, other than what to put on the grill or where to find the best deals. But this year I will think of these former slaves who put their lives on the line to give thanks to these soldiers who lost their lives to free them. It is so easy to just say thanks, say a little prayer for someone and then move on. It takes a special someone to do something as moving and as memorable as these former slaves did to these unknown soldiers. On second thought, it might not be such a crazy idea after all. I salute these people whoever they were.

Ray Charles is a true American genius and he performed the best rendition of "America The Beautiful" ever. Some people have wanted this song to be the national anthem but The Star Spangled Banner won out. Anyway, here is Ray performing the song for your enjoyment.

Happy Memorial Day.