"A Time To Remember..."

I remember when Memorial Day was a more somber event... 

When I was a child, it was the day that early in the morning, you'd go with your parents to visit the graves of your relatives, especially those who had served in time of war.  I can remember washing the headstones and leaving flags and flowers as my father and mother told us about the family members whose graves we were visiting but who had lived before our time.  

On our return home, we'd have our backyard BBQ and with much excitement look forward to the surest sign that summer had arrived... My mother would make homemade ice cream. 

As Mother would make the cooked custard that would be blended with the cream in the old freezer, my father and I would go to the ice house to buy 50 pounds of ice in a waxed brown paper bag to cool our drinks and feed the ice cream freezer.  I can remember many a Memorial Day afternoon standing in front of the old ice cream freezer with my mother, completely mesmerized by the spinning can.  As I watched the wonderful concoction begin to freeze as it churned through the dasher, I thought, "nothing could be better than this."  When finally the freezer came to a stop, my mother would pull the dasher from the can and as she scraped the soft frozen ice cream from the dasher, she was always careful to leave some behind as my reward for being her helper.  The world was truly magical back then... 

I am always remembering.