We enjoyed a great Memorial Week with an overnight guest. It included two dinners out, Fireworks, a Race Party, a beach picnic, and Gourmet Hot Dogs. I had a conversation with a guy that attended the same Jefferson Airplane concert 52-years ago in East Lansing Michigan. Chicago Transit Authority, John Sebastian, and Rotary Connection with Minnie Riperton also played outdoors at Michigan State University’s College Field. Once again, I was grateful to have kept a concert log, enhancing my faint memories of this event while I attended nearby Albion College. 

Memorial Weekends of my childhood were probably filled with family reunions and trips up to Corey Lake in Michigan, but my diaries do not go back that far. I can report that twenty-three years ago, just before my divorce was official, my soon to be (and current) second wife and I took our first trip together to New York City. We stood on top of the World Trade Center tower that would be destroyed by terrorists the following year. We also went to a Yankees game and several Broadway plays on this occasion. 

Many of our following Memorial Weekends were spent with my wife’s mother back in Rochester, Indiana. or at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, or working in the yard. Fifteen years ago, we traveled to Florida and watched the race with my grandson. The next year we had moved to Austin, while soon after my first granddaughter was born. A year later we spent our Memorial Weekend at South Padre Island and the next two at Port Aransas, our favorite Texas beach areas. Nine years ago we were back home again in Indiana. However, in 2014, my wife’s niece got married at Hilton Head over Memorial Weekend, so the beach tradition continued but in North Carolina. 

In 2015, we moved to Portland and spent our only Memorial Weekend apart. My wife went to Indy to be with her mother and I flew to Florida to be Disney Grandpa. Once we got settled in Portland, wine country or the Pacific Coast became the new Memorial Weekend traditions. In 2019, we ventured to Walla Walla for a different kind of wine tasting experience and despite Covid in 2020 joined friends in the Willamette Valley before we moved to Florida. These last two Florida Memorial Weekends have involved the nearby beaches. It’s been fun to look back over a lifetime of Memorial Memories.