Memorial Day Remembrance

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND HAS ARRIVED. I made my mom’s potato salad recipe and bought a package of Koegel hot dogs (thank you, Flint!). I’ll roast a dog on my little Weber charcoal grill on Monday after golf. I’ve fallen for red onions in my recipes this year and notice that I use them quite frequently.

My patio pots are all planted, and my three types of dahlia tubers are showing signs of growth. I still need to clean up my little backyard garden. It has a series of castaway plants that fill the space, including rhubarb, Hostas, and Hakone grass. A half hour should prepare it for summer.

My colored pencil sketching started again after three months of serious procrastination. I had half a dozen asparagus that I had just washed on the counter for my dinner plans. The green gems inspired me to spend fifteen minutes (just get started, Bob) with my various pencils and take another step to getting back on track with my purported new hobby. So, I did.

The photo above is my third attempt at colored pencil sketching. It seemed appropriate for our holiday weekend, where the red poppy has come to symbolize the ultimate sacrifice of our soldiers and is represented in this famous poem by a Canadian physician who experienced all the carnage in Belgium in World War I.

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrae

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:

To you from failing hands we throw

    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.

Have a sacred and reverent Memorial Day.