I remember how much I used to like this day. Well, for the earlier times, it was June 1st that I liked. Then the government in its collective wisdom changed Memorial Day from May 31st to the fourth Monday in May. This day is the beginning of the final push to the end of the school year when we could look forward to almost three months of vacation.
Of course, I’m not in school any longer, and just about every day is a day of vacation so this day no longer means as much to me as it once did. The summer season has begun, though, even for us retired folks. Officially, the season doesn’t change for another three weeks or more, but Memorial Day begins the real summer in Maine.
We had a sort of working weekend at our house. On Saturday we mowed our lawn, but it was still a little damp. I bag my clippings as I go, but the bagging attachment on my rider just plain doesn’t like dampness. With just a little moisture the tube that connects the mower deck to the bags clogs up. That’s what happened to me Saturday, so I took the attachment off and mowed without it. Naturally I left a big mess of clippings behind and had to return to the lawn Sunday with the bagger back on to vacuum the leftovers.
Mowing normally takes me anywhere from two to two and a half hours. That includes the emptying of the bags in my compost spot. We have created a rather nice area where the clippings have turned to dirt and that area probably will become another vegetable garden in a few years. Because I didn’t bag as I went along, the actual mowing time was reduced to about an hour and a half and the next day’s bagging was accomplished in twenty minutes or so. It turned out to be a considerable time saver, one which I might employ in future mowing.
Sunday with the help of my daughter we began laying a new rug in a porch room which has served as an office. It’s not a wall-to-wall carpet in the sense of such a rug, but it wall to wall. It turned out to be a lot more work than we had anticipated. In fact all the furniture and accessories we normally have in that room are now crowded in the dining room. It’s Tuesday, and we still are not done putting down the carpet. Carefully cutting out the places for the heating pipes and things is time consuming. We hope to be finished before the week is over.
There is a part of this Tuesday that I will grow to dislike immensely in the next two weeks. I expect the radio and TV to become saturated with political advertisements for the numerous Democrats and Republicans vying for the House of Representatives primaries coming two weeks from today. The Republican ads began last week, and they were not pleasant. They did nothing to promote the ad’s sponsor but were rather an attempt to get me not to vote for an opponent. The Democrats, on the other hand, were mostly just trying to convince me the sponsor was best suited for the job.
I’ve said in the past I want to learn why I should support a candidate. I dislike immensely being told how bad an opponent is. These ads turn me away from the sponsor, but I’m a Republican and both candidates are doing the advertising I don’t like. Two weeks from casting my vote and I still don’t know for whom to select I am getting closer, though, and not from the ads but rather from what I’m reading about the candidates’ positions on the issues. When I can find them.
This day, the day following Memorial Day, used to be one of my favorite days for what it signaled to me when it was important to me. Today, however, is far from a favorite as it is signaling the beginning of a campaign season that in just two short weeks will make us all very weary.
GiM
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