Memorial Day Remember our Servicemen and Women Who Died For Us
The Military Officers Association of America - Sarasota Chapter normally commemorates Memorial Day by marching in the parade in downtown Sarasota and distributing boxes for people to send to our troops serving in Afghanistan. Covid-19 has stopped the parade this year but not our memories and our thoughts honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military.
Memorial Day occurs on the last Monday of May each year. In 2020 it occurs on Monday, May 25.
Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of the summer season.
Early Observances of Memorial Day
The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed.
The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.
Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and reprised the tradition in subsequent years; by 1890 each one had made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Southern states, on the other hand, continued to honor their dead on separate days until after World War I.
History of Memorial Day
Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars, including World War II, The Vietnam War, The Korean War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day. But in 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees; the change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.
Cities and towns across the United States host Memorial Day parades each year, often incorporating military personnel and members of veterans’ organizations. Some of the largest parades take place in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.
Americans also observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries and memorials. Some people wear a red poppy in remembrance of those fallen in war—a tradition that began with a World War I poem. On a less somber note, many people take weekend trips or throw parties and barbecues on the holiday, perhaps because Memorial Day weekend—the long weekend comprising the Saturday and Sunday before Memorial Day and Memorial Day itself—unofficially marks the beginning of summer.
Memorial Day Parade 2019
Taps
Memorial Day is almost upon us. This year is obviously not what we expected it to be. However, we still should thing about and give thanks to all our veterans at rest this Monday.
I thought many of you would also like to know the history of how "Taps" came to be. The origins of “Taps,” the distinctive bugle melody played at U.S. military funerals and memorials and as a lights-out signal to soldiers at night, date back to the American Civil War. In July 1862, U.S. General Daniel Butterfield and his brigade were camped at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia, recuperating after the Seven Days Battles near Richmond.
Dissatisfied with the standard bugle call employed by the Army to indicate to troops it was time to go to sleep, and thinking the call should sound more melodious, Butterfield reworked an existing bugle call used to signal the end of the day. After he had his brigade bugler, Private Oliver Wilcox Norton, play it for the men, buglers from other units became interested in the 24-note tune and it quickly spread throughout the Army, and even caught on with the Confederates.
Not long after Butterfield created “Taps,” it was played for the first time at a military funeral, for a Union cannoneer killed in action. The man’s commanding officer, Captain John Tidball, decided the bugle call would be safer than the traditional firing of three rifle volleys over the soldier’s grave, a move which couldn’t been confused by the nearby enemy as an attack.
As for the name “Taps,” the most likely explanation is that it comes from the fact that prior to Butterfield’s bugle call, the lights-out call was followed by three drum beats, dubbed the “Drum Taps,” as well as “The Taps” and then simply “Taps.” When Butterfield’s call replaced the drum beats, soldiers referred to it as “Taps,” although this was an unofficial moniker, according to “Taps” historian and bugle expert Jari Villanueva. He notes that Butterfield’s bugle call was officially known as “Extinguish Lights” in American military manuals until 1891. Since that time, “Taps” also has been a formally recognized part of U.S. military funerals.
Thank you all for your service and continued support. We look forward to honoring our veterans. Be safe,
EARLY AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY
EARLY AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY
This is is a nice collection of tinted photochromic from the dawn of the 19th century hiding away in the Beinecke rare books and manuscript library. Published by the Detroit Photographic (which no longer exists), the firm’s photographers traveled the country snapping the sights of North America to be printed on postcards and sold to the public.
Ocklawaha River, Florida, 1902
Click to view more photos
Our Main Street Opens Up May 8, 2020
Our little downtown Main Street in Lakewood Ranch is opening up during Covid-19. The State has opened restaurants at 25% capacity, keeping a 6 foot distance between customers.
Our little community has closed down the street and put tables out into the street, allowing more customers to participate. And people will be able to take out food from the ten restaurants and eat it at one of the many free tables.
Our community is of course elderly, with many people having compromised health. I think most of them will stay away. But younger people will enjoy our restaruant row.
2019 Sarasota Fiction Contest Winner
The rules and guidelines for the 2019 Sarasota Fiction Writer's contest stated this year's theme was on the life and work of Salvador Dali. The story to be 2,500 words or less. A fictional piece to be frightening, dramatic, romantic, thrilling, humorous, sci-fi, western, etc. In other words, a freedom to create whatever you like around a Dali theme.
Why Dali I hear you ask...well he is the 2020 artist being honored by Sarasota's awesome Selby Gardens Botanical Gardens. Previous artists honored have been Chagall (2017), Warhol (2018) and Gauguin (2019).
My short story, judged the winner by the head of creative writing at Sarasota's Ringling College, was inspired by Dali's artistic ability to create art which visually morphs from one subject to another. Dali's painting, 'Persistence of Memory, 1931', combines three art genres: the still life, the landscape and the self-portrait.
As you look and stare and look and stare and stare some more, the picture morphs between three different images. A painting with a multiple identity crisis...incredible, awesome yet mind-blowingly artistic. Magnifique mis amigos.
Robert Heron has developed an excellent blog. Very interesting. Click the link below:
https://www.robertheron.net
https://www.robertheron.net
The Neighbors
Two Nice Gators Below Our Window May 1, 2020
Between the do not feed the gator sign. Go Figure
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Florida Panthers
FOR THE FIRST time, two Florida panthers have been filmed fighting, sparring over territory in South Florida. On a turkey hunt with his s...
-
Many residents have noted that the resident contact list at WaterfrontatMainstreet.com is incomplete. This is because residents must fill ... -
Our friends Dave Dorgan and Dan Dubriel came to the Antiques Road Show at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. They flew down from Chicago and M...
