The County is closed for business today (I work at a County Library facility), but the Town, who owns the library building and whom I work for, is open for business. Evidently we traded this day off for the day after Thanksgiving. I'm okay with that. 
Wow, and I thought that opening certain stores today was being rude to the memory of our fallen soldiers. But that totally takes the cake
I'll ask my dad (a Vietnam vet) if he thought it was rude that the Town conducted business.
I meant the dead ones, and I meant the fact that the town traded away the veterans' holiday, but yeah, I'm curious what he says anyway.
During one of the wars (World War 1 or 2, I forget), poppies grew on the graves of fallen soldiers. They started wearing them as a symbol of their fallen friends. When the war was over, it became a tradition for veterans to make/sell fake poppies in the month or so before Nov. 11. There was a poem written about them called Flander's Fields, by McCrae, which starts "In Flanders fields, poppies grow, between the crosses row and row" or something.
You can kinda see one in this picture of my dad:
http://www.javaop.com/~iago/ospap/show_picture.php?picture_id=68And Google has one on their Canadian site, if you can get to it:
http://www.google.ca/logos/poppy05.gifJust for reference, I Google'd the poem:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
I really like the poem, myself.
