This week I was thinking about Ronald Reagans' farewell speech, there was a part I wanted to remember, so I Googled it and this was the sentence I was thinking about.

"And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen, I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do."

Memorial Day is a day set aside to remember the men and woman who have died fighting for our Freedom.

Freedom in not free, it comes with a price. The price was paid many years ago and continues to be paid by our military men and woman and the families they left behind. Freedom started on the battlefield.

Three years after the Civil War ended on May 5th, 1868 Memorial Day began. It was first called Decoration Day and was a time to decorate the graves of those who died in war with flowers.

Over the years the celebration has changed and most of us will think of it as a 3 Day holiday, the beginning of summer, and get together with our friends and families.  Some communities celebrate with parades, Saline does, Ann Arbor doesn't.

As we gather together with family and friends, let’s take a few moments to remember those who paid the price for us to be able to blog.  

Here are a few more excerpts from Ronald Reagan's farewell address to the Nation:

"An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?

Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American.

And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio.

Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties.

"So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important--why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. 

Another time Reagan said:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same".

Having a son across the world on the Dwight D. Eisenhower, and not with us at our lake cottage, freedom, liberty and what is means will be at the forefront of our minds and hearts.

Around our picnic table we will talk about Freedom, Liberty and remind our children that Freedom is not free but comes with a cost.

Thomas Jefferson said, "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

Happy Memorial Day to all!

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Missy Caulk & Team can be reached at 734-216-2822 or email: Missy@MissyCaulk.com

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