June 13, 2007

Honeysuckle Memories

I was enjoying my garden and trying to get things done for Memorial Day, I still have the tradition of getting my flowers in place in that time frame. I planted  honeysuckle this year on the new arbor we put in. So many memories of being a kid came to me as I was planting it. I started thinking as a kid walking home from school how we would pick the flowers and enjoy the smell or start wrestling around and fall into the bushes.

It’s so sad the kids today don’t have this kind of fun. Traditions are getting lost and I think they were a benefit to our young minds and imagination. As a young girl, waiting to wear white after a certain date, gave you something to look forward to. It was a sign of summer. It made you feel proper and gave you the feeling of being a lady, and a special lady. I started thinking of the 4^th of July celebration our community is planning and how as kids we would be excited for weeks waiting for the holiday. There was an American  spirit in us that was shared with adults and children. Somehow  people got lazy and impatient. No one wanted to take the time to plan and go through all the work to gather family and friends to celebrate being American. The I want it now attitude changed the rules so you could wear white anytime. These are the things that mold and shape young people to be conscientious, to feel they belong to something. So many traditions have fallen by the wayside because we decided they were silly, old-fashioned or we got lazy. What we didn’t see, these things gave us a bond, and how to enjoy life in simple  ways, a  security, that united us in being a family of American citizens. We learned respect from our traditions, we also learned from the traditions of the many people who came here to build a better life. We were able to take a little something from all the immigrants that made America with no thought to being politically correct.

We all had one thing in common, hard work and the American dream. It was working together to build a better country, helping out your neighbor and having the freedom to do it, that kept everyone united. Somehow these things have gotten lost.  We need to go back and instill some of the old  traditions and values in our children so they can have sweet honeysuckle memories too.