Friday’s Theme Music

Launch the Mark V!

Today is Friday, May 26, 2023. Friday before Memorial Day in the US. This year’s Ashlandia weather has been set up for a fun weekend. 68 F now, no clouds to scuff the blue sky. We’re looking at some low 80 F highs for the period.

Many folks around the nation will employ the Friday Mark V. Features of the Mark V includes a four-day weekend, cook-outs, and general games and partying. Memorial Day is a Monday holiday, as established by law in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968. Gives many people at least a three-day weekend. Employees often invoke a three and a half day weekend, taking off from work early.

People are still working though. Restaurants, hospitals, emergency services, military, hospitality and travel industries. And sales. Memorial Day always invokes some kind of sales extravaganza. The opportunities used to be blasted over the radio and television airways. Cars, furniture, mattresses, lawn equipment.

Let me note, though, my wife’s family always treated as a solemn period. No cook-out or grilling, nor drinking and partying. They drove to the cemetery to pay respects to the passed and put flowers on their graves.

Not us. Mom always pushed for a big holiday for this one. Lotta food. Fried chicken, burgers, hotdogs, complemented by potato salad and chips, finished up homemade pies. We usually attempted to go to some park for the day, and my favorite memories involve Keystone Lake in Pennsylvania. We’d leave at dawn so we could get good parking and the best spot. Then we’d haul our food and gear across the land like some great pioneering family. Chairs, blankets, umbrellas, food, beer, sodas, Kool-aide, gloves and balls, frisbees and other games, radio, utensils and plates. Directed by Mom, I would run ahead to find the best spot and claim it, as if the park wasn’t almost empty at that point. Oh, we had such good times.

But sometimes, we stayed home, cooking out in the back yard, playing games there. Fun, too, you know? That was mostly done on Laurie Drive in Penn Hills, before things began unravelling.

Those were the years I was finding rock and roll. One of my early favorites were Steppenwolf with “Born to be Wild” from 1968.

Stay pos. Whether it’s a holiday for you or not, I wish upon you a great day. Not all days can be great but we can still try.

Here’s the tune. Dial up the volume and wake up the wayback machine and sing along.