Decoration Day...

Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day, brings back memories. In my youth, Decoration Day was always celebrated on May 30 (until 1968). Since then, it is now observed on the last Monday in May.

Decoration Day always started out for my family by a visit to Trinity Cemetery to visit the Crotty graves. I remember my mother telling me about her father being in the Spanish American War. The family urn was there (Richie has this now) and I remember it always being filled with geraniums. My mother would then tell me that the cemetery bench that we had at our house was originally at the cemetery. This bench now resides in Houston. She then told me that it was considered an "outing" when she was a kid to go to the cemetery, place flowers, and neaten up the grave sites.

As a kid, the day progressed to a family picnic at Turnwald. It also symbolized the beginning of summer, even though we had more school before the end of the year.

It always made me proud to see a flag on my grandfather's grave...still does.

Butchie Dog - submitted by Tom

His name was Butch, but we often called him Butchie Dog.

The floor mat that is in the picture with Butchie Dog came from Mike Jackson when he worked at Continental Rubber. It was made out of some kind of scrap material from one of the rubber molds they had at Continental. Butchie Dog never liked to step on the floor mat for some reason, so he walked around it whenever he went in or out of the house. Hmm, wonder where the rubber mat ever went?

Do you remember milkmen and milk boxes? The milk box in the picture was from either Dairyland or Bernie Cosgrove's Dairy (we had two different milkmen - one delivered early in the week and the other later in the week). Trish still had a milk box when her children were in their early years. She thinks that she had a milkman (Meadowbrook) until the twins were 5 or 6 years old. She hated to see that go as she really liked having a milkman. She misses the personal touch, and still remembers it fondly.