Saturday, May 26, 2018

Memorial Day – A Day to Honor the Lost!




There are many things Memorial Day is not but with which it has become associated – the unofficial start of summer, a reason to have big parties and barbecues, a time to visit beaches or jump in swimming pools, and an excuse for all sorts of retail sales and promotions. These things have become American traditions, but they ignore the true meaning of the holiday.

The most important part of celebrating Memorial Day is honoring those lost serving their country in the military. We are remembering their service and sacrifice. That is the most necessary and compelling reason to observe this day.

I remember the parades I attended with my parents and grandparents when I was a child. My father (dressed as Uncle Sam), uncle, and grandfather would march in the parade, and I would stand on the sidelines holding my mother’s hand while waving a flag in my other hand. The thumping drums of the marching bands still pound in my heart; the gleam of the sunshine on the uniform brass and buttons still flashes in my mind.

My grandfather always called Memorial Day “Decoration Day,” and when I got a little older I asked him why, and he said, “Because it was the day we had to decorate the graves of our family and friends lost in the war.”

I saw some of his old pictures from those Memorial Days after the Great War (World War I) – they are now sadly disintegrated – and every house on the street had American flags flying and bunting hung on the windows. Those buildings were in the background as the focus of the photos was on the soldiers marching down the avenue in their Doughboy uniforms.

One time when I was about nine or ten I made the mistake of saying “Happy Memorial Day” to my family members as they arrived at our house to go to the parade. My father took me aside and said, “Son, Memorial Day is not a happy holiday.”

“It’s not?” I asked. “But we always celebrate it.”

He sat me down and said, “Look, remember when Uncle John died last year.” I nodded my head sadly. “Well, on the day he died this year, we wouldn’t go up to Aunt Julia and say ‘Happy Anniversary of John’s passing’ now would we?”

“No, I guess not,” I remember saying. “That’s not a happy day at all.”

Over the years after that my Dad told me other stories from when he was in the war and about the friends that he lost. One was his neighbor Johnny, whom he had known since he was a little boy.

My grandmother wrote to him and had an unusual request for my father. Johnny’s mother asked if my father could find out where Johnny was buried in France and take a picture of the grave. Dad was deployed in the Bomb Disposal unit working out of the chateau in Fontainebleau, and he was able to discover where the grave was located – Les Gonards Cemetery near Versailles.

Dad and a buddy got in a Jeep and drove to the cemetery. When he saw Johnny’s grave he felt compelled to kneel down and say a prayer, and his friend took a photograph of the moment. A month later my grandmother wrote back that the photograph meant so much to Johnny’s mother.

Now, so many years later, grand parades are filled with pomp and circumstance, and they are a tangible way to honor those lost. I have taken my own children to our local Memorial Day parade, and they are fascinated by the marchers and the bands just as I had been as a boy, but I need to keep reminding them of the significance of this day.

Thinking back, I do recall returning to the Veterans of Foreign Wars lodge after watching the parade each year, and as everyone gathered to eat and drink and talk, I remember seeing the reverence on the faces of those who were remembering their lost friends. This was not a festive party but rather one where people reflected upon their own brushes with death as well as on those who were gone.

One time I remember a visiting retired Army colonel coming to the reception after the parade. A rather large and muscular man, he sat at our table to eat because my father was the post commander at that time. He had a chest full of ribbons and medals on his uniform. He said that it was nice to meet all of us and
I said, “Same here; you are a real hero.”

This big fellow’s lips quivered a bit, and he leaned forward and whispered to me, “No, son, I’m not a hero. The heroes are the guys we left over there. The ones who never came home. They are the real heroes!”

I have never forgotten those words, and I think that encapsulates what Memorial Day is more than anything else – the men and women who served their country and made the ultimate sacrifice.

If you can do so, attend a parade or other event such as an airshow or wreath-laying ceremony that celebrates those whom we have lost as they served in the military. Your appearance supports those men and women who returned home and it honors the memories of those they have lost.

If you cannot manage to do any of those things this weekend – whether you are swimming in a pool, attending a barbecue, sitting on a beach, shopping in a store, or driving for a weekend getaway – try to remember the real reason why we have this holiday at the end of every month of May.

Perhaps you can think about a kid from Queens, New York, named Johnny, who left to fight for his country and now lies in a cemetery in France. All his mother had left was a picture of his grave, a place she could never visit to place flowers there and cry her tears. All she had was that photo and sweet memories of her boy. That truly is what Memorial Day is all about!

Saturday, May 12, 2018

Students Need Enough Time To Eat Lunch and Enjoy Recess



A recent post on Facebook revealed a person’s dismay over her child not having enough time to eat lunch in school. Many people chimed in (including yours truly) to concur with the poster and add their own stories. Mine was that on many days my son comes home with part of his lunch uneaten in the lunchbox. The reason he gives is always the same – there wasn’t enough time to finish eating. It did bother me when he used to tell me this, but the Facebook post got me thinking more deeply about the situation.

During my years as a school teacher and administrator, I spent enough time in school lunchrooms. One thing I noted was that kids spend two thirds of their lunch period talking. That is a good thing – a very good thing – because socialization should be part of the lunch period. It gives kids a place free from the constraints of the classroom to interact, and that is essential. Students need to be able to talk, laugh, and let off some steam during their lunch period.

The problem is when a lunch period is too short. In some of the cases reported in the Facebook post, parents noted that their children got fifteen or twenty minutes for lunch. Based on my school experience, that is not enough time for the kids to converse and eat. Some kids are slow eaters and talking will slow them down even more. Even the fast eaters will find fifteen or twenty minutes is not enough time to eat and socialize.

The ideal time for a lunch period is 30 minutes, with an additional 30 minutes allotted for outdoor recess. While I can understand why some schools are trying to cut the minutes to add more instruction, the outdoor recess is just as necessary as the lunch period. Students are sedentary during the school day, mostly sitting at a desk or in front of a computer. They need to get outside in the fresh air, throw a ball, and run around the schoolyard.

What is being served for lunch can also be a problem. Due to the limitations of some school lunch menus, parents – myself included – are forced to make lunch on more days than not. Most of the time this is because of a lack of healthy choices on the school menu. My son usually buys lunch one or two days a week because the choices on those other days are not even satisfactory.

School lunches tend to resemble fast food selections that kids love – burgers, French fries, fried chicken, chicken nuggets, and pizza. Unfortunately, these things are high in fat and sodium, not what many parents want their kids consuming. I will allow him to get a school lunch that is healthy – like on taco day when he can add grilled chicken, cheese, and lettuce to his taco.

Another problem even with a healthy choice like the taco is that kids have to wait on line to get their lunches. After queuing for ten minutes, by the time they sit down at their tables to eat that would leave only five minutes in a fifteen-minute lunch period or ten minutes during a twenty-minute lunch period.

The overriding issue is the way Americans perceive lunch and eating in general – as something to get done quickly. The whole notion of “fast food” arose from this mentality. Eating quickly is the antithesis of eating healthy. Food is one of life’s pleasures and should be consumed at a pace that allows a person to enjoy it fully.

Having traveled to many other countries over the years, I have witnessed the difference in people’s eating habits. In these places lunch is not seen as something to get done quickly, but rather something to enjoy at a leisurely pace, and it usually involves other people. American’s tend to eat alone and fast during some or all meals, but lunch seems particularly rushed because everyone feels a need to get back to the office – except the growing number of individuals who eat at their desks because there is not enough time to go out for lunch.

I did a little research into school lunches in other countries, and it is really astounding how different they are from the unhealthy American school lunches. Not only are there better choices – whole grain breads, not fried proteins like lean chicken and fish, and more offerings of fruits and vegetables – but lunch is viewed as a time to be appreciated and not rushed through.

A really interesting case involves school lunches in Japan. In the video (see below article) you will see how school lunches involve the students not just as consumers but as preparers of the daily feast. For some of the selections the students even use vegetables from the school garden in their menus. The students learn about the nutritional value of the foods they are preparing; they actually make the food themselves, and later they even clean the cafeteria.

While this may seem excessive to some Americans, the reality is that these Japanese school lunch periods are lessons in and of themselves. The whole notion of getting lunch over with quickly is dispatched, and the students are involved in the entire process. They are not only eating healthy foods but they are learning skills that they will use when they are adults.

Many Americans have a love-hate relationship with food, no doubt stemming from the school lunches they ate as kids. The "eat fast" or "fast food" mentality is extremely unhealthy, and it is time that we start examining not just what we eat but how we eat. In that contemplation we will see that the process of eating has been rendered not enjoyable in many situations, and that has to change from Kindergarten up to the corporate level.

As for now, parents must make a stand and insist that change comes to their schools in how lunch and recess are handled. They need to let schools know that they expect students to have sufficient time to eat and play during each school day. These times are just as important to children’s overall scholastic experience as math, ELA, science, and history.

School lunch menus need to provide daily healthy choices, but there also has to be enough time provided for the students to savor that food and engage in conversations with their classmates. In this way lunch periods can be seen as moments that promote socialization and well-being, and there is something of great educative value in this – teaching kids a lesson that will last a lifetime.