• Prepping For Memorial Day

Summer might as well be here. The temps are in the mid 90s, schools are just about out, families are gearing up for the coming long weekend, and the Wildomar Historical Society spearheaded a headstone cleaning event in preparation for next Monday's annual Memorial Day service.

Mary Haire supervises her crew as they remove the dirt from this grave marker.

I caught up with city councilmember Bridgette Moore as the activity was wrapping up and asked her for her thoughts.

"We had a great turnout today. We had Scouts from pack 332, and Troop 332 and Crew 332, we had Interacters* from Lakeside High School, we had our incoming post commander [Steve Regalado] from the Wildomar VFW. There were between 40 and 50 volunteers. 

We cleaned all the cemetery headstones in about 45 minutes. Then afterwards we enjoyed chocolate milk from DeJong's, while listening to some history about the Wildomar cemetery.

This was all in preparation for the Memorial Service that will be Monday May 29th, at 10am at the Wildomar Cemetery, and the public is invited and encouraged to come be part of it."

*Interact is a high school club sponsored by the Rotary Club.

The volunteers take a moment to pose for a picture after they'd finished.

There has been a Memorial Day observance at the cemetery for many years longer than Wildomar has been a city. It had previously been done by a local baptist church, and I always found their program very well done (other than for a few political barbs that would get tossed in during the keynote, that I found distasteful in such a setting.) 

link to 2015 blog covering the Memorial Day observance

In fact, they were slated to do it again this year, with official approvals in hand, when they abruptly changed their minds. Opting to have their own observance at their church from now on. 

The story is that they were worried that the event was getting too big.

Fine, it's a free country, but whoever it was that pulled the trigger on that last minute decision needs a lesson in civics. Like it or not, the yearly Memorial Day service at the cemetery had become a city event... on the city calendar, with the public invited and everything that comes with it.

It had been a poorly kept secret that a problem was cropping up between the leaders of the church in question and the fact that Wildomar, now a city with codes —and what used to be done with a wink and a nod, now needed to be done with the proper paperwork in order. 

Instead of bowing out of the event gracefully, they waited until the eleventh hour to cancel the event by letter... oh, I mean "move the event" away from the cemetery to their property. 

Classy move there, don'tcha think?

Hmmm... if ever there was a WWJD moment, you'd think it be when a church is involved with a Memorial Day ceremony.

Leave it to the heathen to point out such obvious things.

That left the city scrambling to put an event together in just about a month's time. I'm not expecting anything elaborate in 2017, but give them a year and I'm guessing that the 2018 annual Memorial Day observance at Wildomar cemetery will be better than ever.

If you're not out of town on Memorial Day, be sure to attend the annual observance at the Wildomar cemetery. It starts at 10:00am, but show up early so you can park and find a seat.

•          •          •

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a cause for withdrawing from a friend.

– Thomas Jefferson 

Wildomar Rap draws a distinction between the existence of the differences that TJ stated, and pushing such differences.