Meet And Greet (Page One)
(May 16th 2014) Last Updated: 09/11/2019 10:38:AM
Welcome to the dance
We are ready to dance
Checking in
requires a glass of wine and a BIG smile
"Sorry Neal... You do not have a ticket! You will have to go to McDonalds"
Fancy dresses... Beautiful lace
Nita makes the rounds
Time Machine begins to play
Making notes for the announcements
"Psssst..... Tom is right next to us!"
Toppers clean up nicely!!
Donnis gets the latest scoop
SPECIAL THANKS TO THIS EVENING'S PHOTOGRAPHERS
"Now Shirley, I get to push the little button!"
"I'll take both!"
Did You Know? - From the practice of decorating graves with flowers, wreaths and flags, the holiday was long known as Decoration Day. The name Memorial Day goes back to 1882, but the older name didn't disappear until after World War II. Federal law declared "Memorial Day" the official name in 1967.
The formal dances bring out beautiful clothes and people!
Donnis greets the men as they come in!
Catching up because we won't be together again until September!
"Watch out... The moth will leave his wallet and bite you if you are not careful!"
"Success... No tags remain... We can find out table"
Leroy takes an order... A triple what??
"Pardon me.. Is this the vodka?"
"So... You put the little doo-hickey into the what-cha-ma-call-it"
Watching the evening go by
Mickey and Al enjoying their wine
Our resident two-fisted drinker
Discussing the summer vacation plans!
Yeah!! Bernie has arrived!
Meeting new friends
Dancing works up an appetite
Gliding across the floor
Did You Know? - Memorial Day was a response to the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War, in which some 620,000 soldiers on both sides died. The loss of life and its effect on communities throughout the North and South led to spontaneous commemorations of the dead.
"Neal... He is such a romantic"
"We love the waltz-tango-polka"
"Paging Dr. Wells"
"Hurry... The music is on"
Twirling the swirling
Did You Know? - Calling Memorial Day a "national holiday" is a bit of a misnomer. While there are 11 "federal holidays" created by Congress -- including Memorial Day -- they apply only to Federal employees and the District of Columbia. Federal Memorial Day, established in 1888, allowed Civil War veterans, many of whom were drawing a government paycheck, to honor their fallen comrades with out being docked a day's pay.
For the rest of us, our holidays were enacted state by state. New York was the first state to designate Memorial Day a legal holiday, in 1873. Most Northern states had followed suit by the 1890s. The states of the former Confederacy were unenthusiastic about a holiday memorializing those who, in Gen. Logan's words, "united to suppress the late rebellion." The South didn't adopt the May 30 Memorial Day until after World War I, by which time its purpose had been broadened to include those who died in all the country's wars.
In 1971, the Monday Holiday Law shifted Memorial Day from May 30, to the last Monday of the month.
Swing music makes you move
"Dance a lot as the next dance is September"
The floor was perfect
Our cameraman is so fast that he hits the button,
poses, and captures their images without a timer!
Did You Know? - On Memorial Day weekend in 1988, 2,500 motorcyclists rode into Washington, D.C., for the first Rolling Thunder rally to draw attention to Vietnam War soldiers still missing in action or prisoners of war. By 2002, the numbers had swelled to 300,000 bikers, many of them veterans. There may have been a half-million participants in 2005 in what organizers bluntly call "a demonstration -- not a parade."
A national veterans rights group, Rolling Thunder takes its name from the B-52 carpet-bombing runs during the war in Vietnam. Rolling Thunder XXII (and you thought only Super Bowls and Rocky movies used Roman numerals) is Sunday, May 24.
