Growing up, Memorial Day always meant neighborhood get-togethers at the park where we’d choose sides and have a baseball game. There was a cooler of beer for the adults, an ice chest of soda pop for the kids, and enough hot dogs, brats, burgers, potato salad, coleslaw and condiments to feed a small army, which in a way we were.

We didn’t think too much about the real reasons behind our festive celebrations, as kids we were having a blast near the end of the school year, and of course the adults were always down for a party regardless of the shape or form it took or the occasion for the event.

In this way, on a Memorial Day, in the early sixties, my friend and I caddied for our dads while they played a round of golf, prior to the real hoot getting started later in the day. We had no cellphones back then, but instead carried with us transistor radios, which we used to listen to radio stations hoping to hear Elvis sing Hound Dog, but on this particular occasion to listen to the broadcast of the Indianapolis 500.

We were early in the round when the call to start your engines went out, and through the tiny speakers we had glued to our ears, we felt and heard the incomprehensible roar of 900 horsepower coming from 33 gasoline fueled 4-cylinder Offenhauser race engines. And then, soon after the start, the voices of the announcers went into horrific over modulation as they described the explosive crash that killed drivers Eddie Sachs and Dave Macdonald.

In a way, even though they were not in the Marines, or the Navy in some war, and even though their uniforms were simply racing attire of the day, helmets, goggles, coveralls, gloves and so on, those two individuals died serving their country. They perished while putting their lives on the line for the sole purpose of providing some jaw dropping entertainment for the 400,000 in attendance and the millions who watched and listened worldwide.

And although Memorial Day is celebrated to honor those who lost their lives while in the military, it seems appropriate to honor all those who serve their country this Memorial Day…everyone who hits the street to earn a living, start and run a business, to try to succeed against all the odds stacked against them, as if those odds didn’t matter, or even as if they didn’t exist.

So maybe you have a prospect in another city and have prepared for days to go make a presentation, as if your life depended on it.

Or maybe you are out on a limb as a construction worker, defying gravity to bring home the bacon, it doesn’t matter, you’re serving your country, you’re serving the concept of free enterprise, and you literally have put yourself on the line to do so.

And for that, we’d like to offer a small Memorial Day thank you, by way of encouraging you to take a look at some way we might be able to help in your endeavors, at Rubber Stamp Champ, with custom rubber stamps for professionals in all capacities such as notaries, geologists, and land surveyors, signature stamps, bank deposit stamps, address stamps and alpha numeric band stamps all custom made and delivered promptly at a fair price.

Anyway, take this Memorial Day off, you deserve it, and whether you spend it smelling the sweet aroma of smoke from the outdoor barbecue, listing to the crack of a bat that sends a home run ball over the fence, or just taking a nap in the shade, know that we appreciate you, and are here to provide all your rubber stamp needs when you march to the beat of your own drummer, serving your country next week, back in the working world.