Dear Customers,
Calendars are a helpful and necessary invention. Without them, I’d forget appointments, birthdays and assorted celebrations! They are based upon astronomical cycles according to fixed rules. For instance, the first day of Winter is on or about December 21st. Where we live, we’ve had plenty of cold weather and even some snow by the time Winter rolls around. We’re living Winter before it even arrives. In a similar manner, Summer doesn’t begin until June 21st, at the Summer Solstice when there are equal hours of daylight and darkness!
According to the Gregorian calendar which has been used by most of the world since 1582, Summer won’t arrive for nearly a month, but if you live in Northwestern Pennsylvania you KNOW that Summer begins on Memorial Day! The reasons are simple, the way we see it; school is for all intents and purposes over, the trees are in full bloom and/or leafed out, the sound of lawnmowers and weed-eaters can be heard all over the neighborhood nightly and. . . to paraphrase Keith Jackson, we’re about to enjoy the Grand-Daddy of all Parades next Monday on Memorial Day!
I love a parade! Maybe because when I was a young boy growing up on East Main Street it seemed like there were several of them every summer. In those days, the bridge on Nelson Street was still open to traffic and the Memorial Day parade route always traveled the length of Main Street – right past my front door! The rest of the neighborhood kids and I would sit on the bank in front of the house, as close to the actual road as possible and literally inhale the sights and sounds of a good parade.
In addition to the solemnity and pageantry of the Memorial Day festivities in the morning, there was always a cookout in the afternoon. Sometimes it was just the family, other times it included relatives and friends, but you could count on the “first” picnic of the summer to be something special, a harbinger of the months to come. So that your picnic/cookout can be the best it can be, Costa’s Supermarket is open 7am-9pm every day including the actual holiday.
From Our Family to Yours, May You Have a Safe & Joyous Memorial Day!