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Text Box: MEMORIAL DAY
In Debt to Ordinary People

Memorial Day is, let us be honest, a day off work when very few among us slow

Text Box: our lives long enough to show our gratitude to the men and women who have died to keep us free.

“In Flanders Fields” is an appropriate tone for the day. The poem is a lyrical work, composed by a Canadian physician named John McCrae, who was 43 olds in the spring of 1915, his soul blackened and then washed clean by his time as a surgeon on the Western front. The poem was written the morning after he performed a funeral service for a dear friend killed in battle.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe,
The torch be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow,
In Flanders fields.

The seed of the wild poppy can lie dormant for years, waiting for the right moment to germinate. The churned-up battlefields provided the perfect breeding ground. So between the crosses, the poppies did blow.

Memorial Day is time to think on men and women who have died in war…simultaneously brave and scared, little people living a big life and suffering a big death for a cause greater than themselves.

Some of us ponder the value of war, the morality of war, the nature of leaders who send soldiers into battle. We ponder because we are too mortal to fully comprehend such questions and because the answers require more moral courage than is, frankly, available. We are the lucky ones; lucky to be able to ponder.

The men and women on the battlefields do not have that luxury; instead, over and over and over again, they give us a nation that allows us to question and to debate. Our debt to them is incalculable.

Anonymous

Text Box: WHICH STATE ARE YOU FROM

You live in Arizona when :
1. You are willing to park 3 blocks away because you found shade.
2. You can open and drive your car without touching the car door or the steering wheel.
3. You've experienced condensation on your butt from the hot water in the toilet bowl.
4. You can attend any function wearing shorts and a tank top.
5. "Dress Code" is meaningless at high schools and universities. Picture lingerie ads.
6. You have over 100 recipes for Mexican food.
7. The 4 seasons are: tolerable, hot, really hot, and ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!
8. You know that "dry heat" is comparable to what hits you in the face when you open your oven door.

You Live in California when.:
1. You make over $250,000 and you still can't afford to buy a house.
2. The high school quarterback calls a time-out to answer his cell phone.
3. The fastest part of your commute is going down your driveway.
4. You know how to eat an artichoke.
5. You drive your rented Mercedes to your neighborhood block party.
6. When someone asks you how far something is, you tell them how long it will take to get there rather than how many miles away it is.

You Live in New York City when:
1. You say "the city" and expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan.
2. You have never been to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.
3. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, but can't find Wisconsin on a map.
4. You think Central Park is "nature,"
5. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
6. You've worn out a car horn.
7. You think eye contact is an act of aggression.

You Live in Pennsylvania when:
1. You only have four spices: salt, pepper, ketchup, and Tabasco.
2. Halloween costumes fit over parkas.
3. You have more than one recipe for moose.

Text Box: 4. Sexy lingerie is anything flannel with less than eight buttons.
5. The four seasons are: winter, still winter, almost winter, and construction.

You Live in the Deep South when:
1. You can rent a movie and buy bait in the same store.
2. “ya'll" is singular and "all ya'll" is plural.
3. After five years you still hear, "You ain't from 'round here, are Ya?"
4. “He needed killin' " is a valid defense.
5. Everyone has 2 first names: Billy Bob, Jimmy Bob, Mary Sue, Betty Jean, Mary Beth, etc.

You live in Colorado when:
1. You carry your $3,000 mountain bike atop your $500 car.
2. You tell your husband to pick up Granola on his way home and he stops at the day care center.
3. A pass does not involve a football or dating.
4. The top of your head is bald, but you still have a pony tail.

You live in the Midwest when:
1. You've never met any celebrities, but the mayor knows your name.
2. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor.
3. You have had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" on the same day.
4. You end sentences with a preposition: "Where's my coat at?"
5. When asked how your trip was to any exotic place, you say, "It was different!"

You live in Florida when:
1. You eat dinner at 3:15 in the afternoon.
2. All purchases include a coupon of some kind -- even houses and cars.
3. Everyone can recommend an excellent dermatologist.
4. Road construction never ends anywhere in the state.
5. Cars in front of you are often driven by headless people.

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