My Civil War veteran grandfathers had special American flags on their graves, and my grandmother never tired of telling me why they were there. The emphasis was truly on honoring and remembering the dead, as it is today in many ways. Of course, we children were interested in the chocolate cake that was always in picnic basket. This year we celebrated Memorial Day by getting together with good friends in the late afternoon. All of our dead relatives are buried in Illinois, about 400 miles from here, so we took no fresh flowers there. We had hoped our get-together would be a picnic in the backyard of a friend, but it rained so we had our picnic indoors. Still it was good to be with friends.