What is special about the month of May?

What is it about May that strikes a pleasant-feeling chord among young and old alike? Could it be late April showers tapered off (what happened this year?) or digging in the garden, enjoying fresh lettuce and radishes paving the way for green beans and cabbage and ... hopefully, fresh corn on the Fourth of July? ... well, you know the rest.

For the younger generation, it means summer is here, even though it isn't ... because the swimming pool is ready for splashes, and that homework is relegated to the back of the brain. "Whoopee!"

Is there some other newfangled word that gets crossways in an old geezer's brain?

May really is a special month. In the older, older generations, it brings back memories of hanging May baskets on neighbors' doors. "What's a May basket?" you may ask. May is also the month of that special day, Mother's Day, when mothers are honored, thanked and loved ... even when the kids are preparing a breakfast-in-bed treat for her. (Is she thinking about the indescribable mess in the kitchen? Of course not.) It's a day for love ... and patience.

Near the last of the month is Memorial Day. It used to be May 30 and it was, and still is, often referred to as "Decoration Day." It was a day when families would get together with visits from those who lived within driving distance. There would be a big feast and then it was a trip to the cemetery or cemeteries to remember those who had served our nation with sacrifices that, too often, included the most tragic one. It was really a time to visit the graves of those you loved, to place bouquets of homegrown flowers on their graves. Now those "made in China" flowers are bright and easy to place, but somehow it just isn't the same.

Do you remember your feelings as you walked between the stones in the cemetery and paused to stop at the gravesite of a former neighbor or friend to read a name and other words about someone who has an especially large tombstone? ... and all the while noticing that so many, many of the stones lack a flower or other remembrance? Such is the evidence of time.

But wait ... there is one other special event which occurs during May or early June or ... one year it happened during the month of April (more about that later) ... when the "journey" becomes important to a special group and on different levels to millions throughout communities small and big and bigger and biggest. In fact, the word "journey" has many different meanings to every individual.

First is a look at those special persons of our lives who graduate and begin new and unexplored experiences. During their graduation events, and at other times during those final senior weeks, most graduates will be reminded that they "are beginning a new journey." The words are spoken with congratulation and with an implied warning there may be new surprises waiting to be addressed and the honoree can count on the lessons learned from those hard classes and tests and homework and other challenges which led to this special achievement.

I can remember those peaceful days back in the early '50s when house doors didn't need to be locked, when today's dollar Baby Ruth candy bars cost only a nickle, when non-smart phones responded with the words, "Number, please" after you cranked the old wood wall party line phone. Wasn't it a surprise when you sometimes answered the wrong ring and you heard a neighbor talking about something you had no business hearing? And when one kid in your class had his own car -- used, of course -- which ran on 25-cent gasoline?

The grads, bless their hearts, then as well as today, settle into experiences they never dreamed would occur in their lives. It is then those education days gather steam and help come to the rescue.

There is one other journey, a journey that might be called a sentimental journey or "It'll never be the same" journey. It is a new journey that will be experienced by parents of every graduate, or grandparents and relatives and, yes, even friends ... because the new traveler through life will be following roads that are his or her making and, in so doing, will create curves and obstacles and surprises that cannot be traveled by anyone else. It is a personal long, lone journey and creates different long, lone journeys for each individual who has helped guide the grad to graduation day.

The challenges will always be to maintain the love that was and sometimes must continue as time leads the way into uncharted waters. It is a time to "set free" and yet "hold on" by everyone involved to make the new journey a lasting one that reflects the feeling that love and only love can produce.

Looking back is something that will always be, but not as often as looking ahead must be, even though "nothing will ever be (quite) or (quiet) the same." Thinking back over the dozens of graduation articles that have been pounded out on the old Underwood and now on the "I'll never get used to the portable Smith-Corona," it all comes down to that expected and very sincerely typed: "Congratulations, Grads" and to parents, and grands, and friends and all who are and will be creating journeys of a lifetime. Bon Voyage.

Dodie Evans is the former owner and long-time editor of the Gravette News Herald. Opinions expressed are those of the author.

Editorial on 05/22/2019