Day 201 - do you remember?

 Today is the 5th day of the 29th week, the 20th day of the 7th month, the 201st day of 2023, and:

• Get to Know Your Customers Day - there's one every quarter on the third Thursday after the pervious quarter's end
• Hemingway Look-Alike Day
• Independence Day - Colombia from Spain in 1810
• International Chess Day
• Moon Day
• Nap Day
• National Fortune Cookie Day
• National Lollipop Day
• National Pennsylvania Day
• National Ugly Truck Contest Day
• Space Exploration Day
• World Jump Day

Quote of the day:

"There is always something left to love.  And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing."

~ Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright and writer

There's a lot of memories being shared today - where you were when Neil Armstrong took his first step, how the US got there, and why we stopped going to the moon just 3 1/2 years later.

Every year I write in a post about remembering Jay - an annoying little man that Frank befriended and helped, and that I supported as much as I could after Frank was gone.  He was struck and killed by a car crossing Rolling Road to get from his apartment to Security Square Mall, and disappeared from this world without leaving a trace.  I got to thinking about the saying "you're never really dead as long as someone remembers you" and it made me think of what would happen to Jay when I was gone, not that I think of him that often.  And then I started going through my family tree.  I never knew my grandfather Riley, and after my mother was gone, so are the memories of him.  Aunt Nell [my mother's sister] and Uncle Eddie were childless, and have been gone for decades now, I wonder if their coworkers, or their godchildren [who would be in my generation] ever remember them?  My kids never met Uncle Eddie, who died before they were born, and they have only a hazy recollection of the existence of  Aunt Nell, remembering primarily that she lived all her life with Grandmom Riley.  So when I am gone, who will remember them?  

Aunt Nell and Uncle Eddie
Ocean City, MD  1968 day trip

They'll become one of those fading pictures in a photo album and years from now, if the album survives, someone will look at it and say "I wonder who these people were?"

At least, when we celebrate Neil Armstrong's first step, and mourn Eugene Cernan's last step, on the moon, we know that humans could someday return.  But all those untold people who have quietly and completely faded away, can never be called back, not by the most avid historical researcher.  

It makes me sad.