Posts

Showing posts from May, 2008

Memorial Day

Memorial Day I have a hard time saying “Happy Memorial Day” as it is not supposed to be a happy occasion. Does anyone else feel that way too? I know in Hawaii they spend lots of time making Lei’s for all the graves on all the islands. The kids in school make lei’s for tombs all over the islands, it is lovely tradition. When you go to the Punchbowl (it is a crater that is also a National Cemetery) there are lei’s on every tomb. It is powerfully sad and makes you proud too. The Hawaiian’s are fiercely patriotic and that is something that the folks here in the mainland do not know. They celebrate the day they were entered into the union (Statehood Day August 20) It is a state Holiday, but they also celebrate their heritage, with King Kamehameha and Prince Kuhio days. Aloha festival is a mixture of Hawaiian pride and now American pride. The one thing that is little known is that they are very respectful of the dead and they take remembrance seriously, that no one is forgotten. It see