Go shopping
Out of habit, I almost wrote “Happy Memorial Day.” That’s an automatic salutation for a holiday. But I don’t think there is anything happy about Memorial Day, especially this year. Nor should there be anything automatic about referring to it as a holiday. It is kind of an automatic response and I even made that reference in my last post. But, it’s not really a holiday, is it?
Sure, we’ve turned it into the great summer kick-off weekend filled with mega-sales and picnics and get-aways. There were tons of fliers in my Sunday Boston Globe advertising blow-out sales and great savings. There was much made of the people going away for mini-vacations despite the high price of gasoline.
The front page of the Boston Globe, however, didn’t mention Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Memorial Day. Complete silence about them. And complete silence about the service men and women who are the reason for this Memorial Day weekend.
Actually, I take that back. There was one mention of Iraq in the front page’s side bar. The headline was “GOP rivals embrace unproven Iraq-9/11 tie.” Well, that’s not exactly Memorial Day deep thinking or reflection or introspection, is it?
What I did find on the front page, however, were headlines like, “Behind the wheel, on the phone, styling hair....” and “No place like home” and “Heavy TV viewing under 2 is found” and “Cuts put towns’ libraries at risk” and “Boston 2017” and “Ready to roll: NASCAR 600, Indy 500 hit the tracks today.”
I don’t get the Globe during the rest of the week, so perhaps they saved it all for today. But it is Memorial Day weekend and you’d think maybe they could devote a weekend to it. But that’s probably not what their readers want to read. Heaven forbid that we should have to be exposed to the horrors of war any more than absolutely necessary.
By inference, I suppose that means we shouldn’t have to think too hard about the service men and women who have fallen in all our names this past year, either. Maybe it makes us too uncomfortable. And, from what I’ve heard over the past few years, it is patriotic to go shopping which is, apparently, exactly what this ‘holiday’ has become. Pardon me if I don’t quite get the connection between shopping and dead service men and women.
Well, I do think about our dead service men and women nearly every day. Maybe we all do. Or maybe not. I guess we shouldn’t really need a ‘holiday’ to remember them and honor their service. But, as long we do have a national ‘holiday’ weekend designed specifically for remembering our war dead, it seems to me that we should do a more believable job of it.
I guess that’s just me, this year. It feels far more like a day of mourning than a happy, happy hot mega-sales kick-off to summer.
Thanks, dk. It wasn’t until about...oh...five years ago that I really started thinking differently about Memorial Day. Used to be just one more long weekend eagerly awaited, but now it represents a compilation of tragedy that seems to know no end.
Posted by Kate on 05/28/07 at 11:05 PM
Well people did shop on Monday let me tell you! I had to work it lol. And I just kept wanting to ask people....... don’t you have plans, like cookouts or something lol. Isn’t that the norm here? Today was dead if you compared it to yesterday.
I have to say, this has always been a holiday that is confusing for sure. When we were in Ca, the kids always came home from school with something that had a kind of tribute to memorial day, here, nadda, zip.
Posted by justme on 05/29/07 at 05:47 PM
I suppose if you think you need stuff, Memorial Day blow-out sales are just the ticket. Maybe people had their picnics and family gatherings on Sunday. At least in my neighborhood they did. Had to be ready for those sales early in the AM!
Posted by Kate on 05/29/07 at 08:06 PM
I have been a loyal Boston Globe reader since I first moved to this area over 40 years ago. Of course, the fact that the only other choice was the Herald may have had something to do with it. But it is NOT the same paper, over the last ten years, it has lost something important. No longer does it hammer a point home or get on someone’s case. It is a kinder, gentler paper and basically stinks. The editorials are boring, there is little of substance in the paper, it pretty much gives the politicians carte blanche....it is not the Globe of days gone by. And they wonder why circulation is dropping? That is one of the reasons. I spend lots of time on the internet, but I like to read my paper in my kitchen with endless cups of coffee and I suspect a lot of other people do. I don’t think they can blame all the dropped subscriptions on the internet. The Boston Globe has become the Katie Curic of newspapers, bland, boring, all fluff, no substance......
Posted by cyn on 05/30/07 at 09:06 PM
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Well put.
I did write “happy Memorial Day” in a couple of notes I sent out today, but I sort of cringed doing it and couldn’t quite put my finger on why? I get it now. Thanks.