A Day Late A Dollar Short

Photo by EJS

Photo by EJS

It's Monday...no wait, it's Tuesday. I know all week I'll be off by a day. You know what they say, a day late a dollar short. I think this is my first long weekend blog post. Wow, that's cool. So just for the record, if it's a long weekend I will not write during that holiday you'll hear from me the next day. 


I hope you had an exciting long weekend. I did. Our family was in from out of town, so since Friday it's been one big party. In the days to come I'll share some stops that I made along the way but for today I wanted to share some Memorial Day facts just in case, like me, you didn't know:


History of Memorial Day
It began in 1868 (May 5), when members of the Grand Army of the Republic requested that their commander, Civil War General John A. Logan, decorate the graves of their fallen compatriots with flowers.


- On Memorial Day, the flag should be at half-staff until noon only, then raised to the top of the staff.


- The custom of wearing red poppies started in 1915 and was inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields" by Moina Michael. She came up with the idea of wearing red poppies and was the first to wear one. She sold them to her friends and co-workers. She used the money to help the servicemen in need.

We cherish too, the Poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led,

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heros never dies.

- Memorial Day was first called “Decoration Day” because of the practice of decorating soldier’s graves with flowers.

- New York was the 1st state to officially recognize Memorial Day

- The south refused to honor the dead on Memorial Day until after World War I when the meaning of Memorial Day changed from honoring civil war dead to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.

- Memorial Day was declared a federal holiday in 1971