Memorial Day

For members of Mount Airy's American Legion Post 191, Memorial Day 1993 is both a time to honor our country's deceased veterans and a time to involve area youngsters in the annual observance.On Monday, Post 191 will sponsor its traditional Memorial Day Service, beginning at 11 a.m. at Pine Grove Chapel on South Main Street. The choice of guest speaker for the ceremony, Mount Airy resident William L. Self, reflects the dual focus of the observance.Mr. Self is a retired United States Navy captain and a veteran of the Vietnam War. He is also an assistant district Boy Scouting commissioner who serves as the liaison between the Francis Scott Key District and Scouting units in Mount Airy, New Market and Kemptown.

THE MASSIVE no-show at Baltimore County schools Monday -- Memorial Day -- was as predictable as veterans' parades and family get-togethers. Memorial Day is not one of those barely noted holidays known primarily as days off for bank employees and government workers.It's a major national holiday, when everybody who can stops doing what he or she usually does. Granted, for many the day has become associated more with family picnics than its reason for being, to recognize the war dead. But in an era where families have little enough time together, that is not so trivial.

ASK YOUNGSTERS why we celebrate Memorial Day, and they'll likely tell you, "Because it's opening day at the swimming pool." But the pupils at Old Mill Middle School South in Millersville know better. Thanks to the efforts of Michelle Malchester, a teacher who never forgot the lessons in patriotism taught by her parents, pupils at her school know much more about the true meaning of patriotism and the sacrifices of America's military men and women than many of their peers. The culmination of their year of learning happens at 2 p.m. tomorrow when family and friends are invited to the school's fifth annual Memorial Day Assembly.

Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial beginning of summer -- time to head for the ocean or take a dip in the pool. But the real reason for the holiday has nothing to do with beaches or bikinis. The holiday, created to pay tribute to soldiers killed in the Civil War, is meant to honor those who have died in the service of the country. The history of the holiday will be told in a program at Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, 2400 E. Fort Ave., on Monday. "A lot of visitors always associated it with cookouts and the start of summer but didn't know the origins of Memorial Day," said Fort McHenry chief park ranger Vince Vaise, explaining the decision to introduce the program.

The holiday has come and gone. The beach season is now officially open. The slew of summer cookouts has begun. But for some, Memorial Day marked an even more crucial calendar event -- Fashion's Line of Demarcation. Finally! I can break out all the white clothes I'd stashed away over the winter. White pants, white shoes, white dresses! All the white that's fit to wear! Now it's all right for me to pull on some shorts and a tank top. And I can wear my open-toed shoes. For those folks, anyone seen in white before Memorial Day is as guilty of crimes against fashion as Michael Jackson was in his courtroom PJs. But today's style-setters say those who judge pre-Memorial Day white-wearers or toe-barers so harshly are stuck in O.F.F.

After the safest and coolest Memorial Day in recent years, Marylanders headed home yesterday to find some -- but not all -- of the traditional highway bottlenecks waiting for them.The most dangerous place yesterday was the water, with the Maryland Natural Resources Police reporting two drownings.Fidel Salmeron, 19, of Hyattsville, fell into the Potomac River and disappeared while fishing with family members near Offutt Island in Montgomery County. A search for his body was to resume today.

Maybe it's time to cover the picnic table with newspapers, invite the family over and have that crab feast you couldn't afford over Memorial Day weekend.Crab prices have dropped in recent weeks -- by as much as $68 a bushel in at least one case -- according to a spot check of retailers and wholesalers around the state.Al Strzegowski of Al's Seafood on Eastern Boulevard in Middle River perhaps best summed up the current crab market yesterday when he said: "They're not cheap, but they are at least affordable."

By moving the NCAA Division I national championships to Memorial Day weekend in 2006, officials hope to ease the burden on participating teams and rev up attendance. Kathy Zerrlaut, chair of the Division I women's lacrosse championship committee and senior associate athletic director at UMBC, said the committee has been talking about making the move for years. The women's final four has been held the weekend before Memorial Day, while the men's tournament culminates over the holiday weekend.

At the scenic wooded spot where James L. Harris used to play as a child in the 1960s, his mother, Mattie, once again made a pilgrimage yesterday to remember her son who died in Vietnam.Shot in the head on May 25, 1968, James Harris, was among the honored dead at the Maryland Vietnam Veterans Memorial near the foot of the Hanover Street Bridge in South Baltimore.For Mattie Harris, the veterans memorial site is more than a place to gather with others who lost family members. On this landscaped, verdant rolling hill that slopes to the Patapsco River, she can remember her little boy who used to come here to play long before anyone in the neighborhood ever heard of Vietnam.

It didn't matter whether the sound blared from a trumpet or fell quietly from the lips of a civilian waving a small American flag.The message delivered yesterday during the 126th annual Memorial Day Exercises in Westminster was a clear, unmistakable "thank you" to the men and women who fought to protect the American way of life."