Ahrcanum

Just when you thought you heard all the Memorial Day stories, May 25th was also Towel Day.  Created as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams (1952-2001). Adams was mostly noted for as the author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series.  Adams’ official biography shares its name with the song “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd.

So why a towel to honor someone?  A towel (…) is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value…More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. http://www.towelday.org/faq/index.html

If Adams were alive today, I am sure he find all of this quite humorous.

I decided to forgo carrying a towel yesterday.  Had I, it would have been to wipe away tears for the dead and the surviving families from wars.

Google Earth has a new map to honor the more than 5,700 American and Coalition servicemen and women that have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each figure on the map denotes a service member lost during the last six years. Tied to their hometown, each figure pops up a screen that gives information about that fallen troop.  It is a work in progress,

http://www.mapthefallen.org/ Look at this map, and explore the stories of heroism and sacrifice made across this nation and across the world. Although this map only shows the hometowns and places of death for these soldiers, it’s important to remember that each of these servicemen and women have a rich story in between, which leads me to something a Gold Star mom recently shared with me: