Armistice Day

It was nice enough today to ride my bicycle. Actually, it was way nice enough. I headed out at about 10:30am into 46 or so degree temperature with light southerly winds. The haze cleared off, the sun started to shine, the temperature quickly rose through the 50s so that it looks as though the high temperature for the day will be above 60 before the sun goes down. As I commented to another cyclist who rode up alongside me as I waited for the light at Summit and Lexington, you don't get many days like this at this time of year.

The picture at left was taken today. The location is in Saint Paul near Como Park, about 2.5 miles from home. It is Sheldon Street, looking north from Frankson. The street is lined, both sides, for the entire block, with oak trees. The oaks have not completed the color change and as perhaps we all know, they will be the last to drop their leaves, possibly hanging on until mid-winter before they go bare.

I took a longish ride, intending originally to ride to the Cathedral but as I cruised down Summit it occurred to me that today is the actual Armistice Day as opposed to tomorrow's Veterans Day Observed. Yes, I am old enough to remember that when I was a child some of the older folks referred to the day as Armistice Day, a reference to its true significance as marking the end of World War I. The war to end all wars ended with a cease fire at the 11th minute after the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918. It was only after civilization managed to arrange for a second World War that the necessity came to recognize another group of veterans and therefore to change the name to Veterans Day.

Wikipedia reports that as of today there are 22 surviving veterans of WWI, including in the USA only three who had completed training and served in the Army before the Armistice. Of the other three, 106 year old Frank Woodruff Buckles of Charles Town, West Virginia, is the last US veteran to complete training and serve overseas. I am also old enough to remember when Albert Woolson, the last surviving American Civil War veteran, died (in 1956), and to remember that he was a resident of Minnesota at the time of his death.

I suspected there might be ceremonies at the veterans memorials on the State Capitol grounds and so I changed my destination to check on the ceremonies.They had a band, a color guard, and a rifle squad to fire the 21 gun salute. The main program was at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial before moving to the WWII and Korean War memorials for the firing of the rifles.