Get Your Bearings -- in One Paragraph

Robinson Crusoe gets stuck on a desert island.  The courts presume he is "dead" and turn over his estate to his local government because he died intestate with no next of kin.  The local government goes hog wild and spends against his estate until they can borrow no more.  At the last minute. Robinson comes home and says, "What the ____???"  That is where we are, folks. 

Anna Von Reitz

Memorial Day 2017 --

By Anna Von Reitz

Very early in the morning, before the sun was above the horizon and while the world was still wet with dew, my Grandmother or Mother would come shake my shoulder to wake me.  There was always a silent sense of urgency in the air on Memorial Day, as if we had an appointment and couldn’t be late.

Then it was out into the cool damp morning, into the woodlots and pastures and gardens to gather armloads of the flowers that bloom this time of year: sweet-smelling Bearded German Iris, Blue Flags, peonies, and early roses, white and pink and lavender and deep purple lilacs and Bridal Wreath and ivy and rosemary and other herbs.  We’d carry them home through the dawn light in shiny tin buckets and into the farmhouse kitchen, where we would sort it all out and make individual bouquets. 

Purple Iris for Grandpa’s grave, peonies and roses for Aunts long dead, lilacs and roses for Cousin Pearl Marie-- and so it went, remembering each one and choosing the flowers just for them.  By eight o’clock we’d joined the throngs of other families threading our ways through the cemetery rows and among the moldering stones, mostly quiet as we stabbed the wire prongs of the green metal flower vases into the ground, but sometimes there would be the odd sound of someone laughing or a child chattering too loud.