MEMORIAL DAYIt has been Memorial Day most of this week for me!
I keep wondering how it can be that in this great nation of ours we cannot bring ourselves to recognize and observe a set date for anything. We change our holidays as frequently as we do our socks or underwear.
“Memorial Day” has always been the last day of the month of May, I think. No more. It is among those dates of consequence which have been writ-switched by Congressional date-setters to take place on the Monday nearest to the original date.
In a quasi-technical sense, it rally doesn’t make that much difference anyway, because our calendar system has been pretty well botched-up for decades in end. The chief changers in many such cases seems to be government employees in the
District of Columbia who are intent on making it mandatory that all holidays occur on Monday making the Long Week End observance they have long favored, a nationwide custom.
Each time the holiday shifts about irreparable damage is done to the meaning of the holiday when it was set up as a symbol urge us to revere and respect that date in memory of an outstanding individual or event. When the holiday is fragmented so is the honor being paid to the reason for it’s being.
When my favorite auto race came on the air from Indy, I knew was from Indy came TV t, I knew it had to be Memorial Day, but it wasn’t . I found out it was not. It was tomorrow. The “Memorial Day” races I saw being run in Indianapolis, Indiana, Monte Carlo and Charlotte, North Carolina were running just the same,which could not be, so I left them all and did other things.
It somehow, does not seem right that a faction in D.C. should determine how the rest of us observe our holidays. Existing Human Resources experts allow, even seem to encourage the Long Weekend perk, something which the general nationwide run of commerce, business, and industry does not accept. It can be seen happening out of D.C. I live on the arterial routes of southbound motor traffic U.S.#11, I-81 and, not too far to the east, I-95. When a Monday holiday is in the offing, you can easily see increased numbers of D.C. and northern Virginia cars heading southward. By night fall it becomes a steady flow. It is all but absent until, Monday afternoon, the current is reversed and traffic gradually becomes heavier - toward the north.
I am always reminded,too, that I see only one fourth of the action. Trips of a like nature are moving into and out of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and points beyond. I have no way of checking traffic at Dulles, Reagan National, and small, private airports, but I'll bet the pattern of "ups" and "Downs" works out pretty much the same way.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 5-30-06 [c501wds]
