Monday is, much to my surprise, Memorial Day.
(Okay quick sidetrack: I know, I know, I “should” not be surprised by that fact but, dang it, we have dates on the calendar for a reason! The last Monday in May?! Who thought of that?! How am I supposed to remember that!?!? Huh?
Nobody remembers important things that way! Nobody. We don’t say “Yeah my birthday is the fourth Sunday after the Vernal Equinox” or “Make sure to clear your calendar for the second Friday following the fifth full moon before Cancer descends on the horizon, because we are having a picnic! Bring Hot Dog Fixin’s!”
No! Only bureaucrats who have nothing better to do than look at a calendar and hope they actually ARE closer to their retirement would decide that a holiday should move around like that. Okay, bureaucrats and ancient priestly orders devoted to the study of precise astrological phenomena.
Out in the real world we remember when things happen by using a convenient system as shown below:
Somebody says, “Hey, there is a new movie coming out June 9th. Wanna see it?”
Then the other person says, “What day is that?”
Then the first person says, “I don’t know. A Friday I guess. Maybe we should look it up?”
Then the first guy says, “Okay.”
SEE! It makes perfect sense! We have a calendar that tells us what day of the week the day of the year fall on. And that day of the year is chosen based on the position of the Earth in relation to the Sun. Doesn’t that make sense? Sidetrack over.)
Thank Heavens though Monday will be Memorial Day, a day for us to honor those who lost their lives in our country’s wars and while serving in the military. If there is any reason to have a national holiday that would be it. Why one of the best ways to tell if a people will survive, in my opinion, is to notice how they honor their war dead.
Which is what I particularly like about Memorial Day. For all of our ridiculous weepy, teary eyed moaning and groaning over the horrors of war when it comes to Memorial Day we celebrate our war dead the right way, with food burned with fire and sporting events and new entertainments, the way the Ancient Greeks did!
Sure they made sacrifice and did track and field naked and gave speeches about the dead while we grill out and barbecue, watch the Indy 500, and go see the latest summer blockbuster. And sure, we don’t do any of those things to honor the dead or to remind ourselves of the excellence they exemplified, we do them to have fun and to put off going back to work (if we get the day off.)
I know that kind of angers a lot of people. They view our playing around as disrespectful and forgetful of the sacrifices made by our fallen heroes. And that is true. Unabashedly true. But at least I have to wonder if the ponderously sad and endless sorrow that so many people display at these times of remembrance isn’t more disrespectful. Those who died in the wars died heroes! They were warriors, not victims and they should be praised for being warriors! They are the great and honorable and they should be remembered in their strength and courage, not wept over like a bunch of children who got lost in the woods and couldn’t find their way out. We should remember all of the enemies they killed and the great deeds they did and be proud of them and their sacrifice. I have no idea how solemn, weeping, head bowed, misty eyed wreath laying services do that.
But I am glad anyways! Maybe when we are cooking out and playing Frisbee football we aren’t communicating our values (or maybe we actually are communicating our real values) but who knows, maybe if there is some Elysium in Heaven for our war dead will be joining us in our celebration of life and deeds and their life and deeds.
I hope so. And I know on Monday when I lift my hamburger from the grill to my mouth I’ll remember to thank each and everyone of them for letting me enjoy it.

-Bob

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I was watching TV, as is my wont, and saw a commercial for a women only “fitness center”, you know a gym which is only for women so that people who would otherwise have been squeezed out of the gym market by more farsighted and quick acting entrepreneurs could find a niche and then wedge themselves into a significant share of the gym market, and I was struck by three observations.
1.) Why is a black woman selling the free tanning? Not that she shouldn’t, heck in a more northerly latitude it might well behoove her to enjoy some winter time artificial sunlight, ya know, for the prevention of Seasonal Affective Disorder and all. Still seems like that unlimited access to tanning booths wouldn’t be as strong a selling point for her personally as to say, a Irish/Swedish woman who fears neither skin cancer nor leathery skin. Just an interesting production choice.
2.) Why are these women segregating themselves?! The only reason any of us works out is so the opposite sex can see us and be impressed! People may say it is for health, but that is ridiculous. Healthy eating and just puttering around the backyard would take care of a lot of the problems that people are running on treadmills or doing pilates for hours to supposedly avoid. And if we all got really honest most of us are careening wildly as fast as we can towards the welcome embrace of death! None of us want to really live as long as our workout regimen will force us to live. No. None of us want to live so long that we have to start taking annoying medications and watching what we eat, just so we can cling to a joyless, pain-filled, disease ridden, limited life while our even more hedonistic friends and family die off around us. We want to die with a cheeseburger clenched in one fist of a massive unsuspected coronary after a lifetime without any health scares years before we see age’s cruel decay begin to dream of withering our or our friend’s youth. That is what we all want.
Nobody needs a six pack or a butt of steel or awesome lats. We don’t hunt gazelles or flee from lions anymore! The only reason anyone wants those is for the opposite sex to become enamored with! So why hide it at a women only gym, Ladies?
I can only see two possible reasons: One, like the ancient Lakaedemonians (aka the Spartans) of old these ladies, ahem, prefer the company of their own sex more than that of their complement and would prefer to exercise for each other or Two, these ladies do not believe they can compete with the ladies in the co-ed gyms and do not think they are getting enough of the attention that gyms should be providing them.
I think this has to be the case. I cannot help but believe that after enough time in the women only gym a lot of these ladies, who will suddenly find themselves looking much better than they initially did, shall find the company of men while they work out more welcome. Unless they
3.) It is fun how modern thought always winds up emulating ancient thought after all of the refinement and nobility has been stripped from it. Feminists who would have been offended at the thought of being segregated away from the male population to protection them from men watching them exercise are now segregating themselves from men as they exercise to protect themselves from men seeing them exercise. I do not understand how on earth men restraining each other for the comfort of women is chauvinistic but women forcing men to restrain themselves for the sake of the women doing the enforcing is liberated. The former was looking to, on some level, look out for the interests of the other at its own expense. The latter looks only to its own interests. Ah well. It isn’t like a lot of those ladies going to their own gym is costing any of us any joy or camaraderie or even a potential date!
4.) I can’t believe it. The best season of the year is already over. It is October and Bikini Season is over. DANG IT! I know I should be thankful for it finally be cool enough to make me not want to die, but RATS! Sure I like the lassies Fall Fashions, what with the skirts and all but still Bikini Season is awesome! It is the only time of the year you can know a girl isn’t wearing supportive something or tummy tucking thing and know that what you see is what you get. Plus now EVERYONE is gonna start eating more! Now we are all gonna start fattening up for Christmas and that means that we are all going to hear again and again and again about diets and what have you in 3 months as the lassies begin to prepare for Bikini Season once again.
Eh. Months of whining about Bikini Season coming so that the girls can be ready for Bikini Season. Yeah. It’s worth it.

-Bob

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