It's Memorial Day!

Disclaimer: The majority of these photos were not

taken during 5 o'clock local time

My sister is marching in the parade!

Sitting with Grandpop - we've got in made in the shade!
Today had to be one of the hottest Memorial Days here in Central Jersey in a long time.

Nana snaps a few shots!

For those of you who once upon a time marched in the parade, we are just across the street from what used to be Thrify's Drugstore (now a Walgreens) on the corner of 7th and Washington Ave.

Here comes the parade!
Unfortunately, it took me several shots to coordinate my photo taking skills of the paraders. Therefore I missed good shots of the VFW at the start of the parade.

I got it together in time to get the high school band - the Superchiefs!
Hey, I think I know that girl holding the banner on the left!

Lorraine and Sarah with the Daisy GS troop march on by!

More than a dozen troops marched right behind the Latina dancing girls from Lady of Fatima. The Boy Scouts followed and concluded the youth civic groups. I would have taken a picture of the Sequinettes if they were there - but I don't think they are a group any longer.

New Market Fire Dept. paraded all its 9 vehicles -
even the historic firetruck

This truck was bought in 1940s when
my grandfather was chief of the dept.

The Arbor Rescue Squad car is historic too -
it's been around since I was a little girl.
I

The segues are not so historic -
I still think it is funny that there are two in town.

I always giggle when I see the Rescue Squad's boat. There's actually a 2nd one behind this one that my dad once commandeered to catch a fugitive on the run hiding in New Market Pond.
I also get a kick out of all the candy the paraders throw out to the kids along the curbside. Luke stuffed my pocketbook with all the booty he collected as the parade passed on by. The parade was impressive with River Road, Holmes Marshall, Possumtown, and North Stelton there with all their trucks, ladders, pumpers, hummers, and Incident Command Vehicles.

It was so hot that it was time to break out the slip and slide after the picnic goodies. At least they didn't have to wait an hour after eating!

They gave the last full measure of devotion

Memorial Day Weekend 2010 is upon us. It is with a grateful heart and spirit that we take time to pause this weekend to thankful for and remember the men and women who sacrificed all in service to our country for our freedoms. While many of us might know the beginning of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by heart from school days, it is the rest of the text that speaks to the meaning of this weekend of remembrance:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln