As we move toward a holiday which provides yet another of those four day weekends for many of our federal, state and local officials, it comes into increasingly sharp focus that more and more of our patriotic observances have been constructed more as opportunities to benefit our nation's retailers, theme parks, and beaches than to honor those who have fought for our freedom.
  We at the American Party of Florida want our residents and especially our children to remember that Memorial Day originally was set aside to remember those who died fighting for the United States. First, during the Civil War; and then later expanded to include all of America's war dead.

  However, in its wisdom, Congress decided to standardize many of our holidays into the much-cherished three day weekends.

  Not everybody was happy. At the time, Georgia Congressman Fletcher Thompson offered an amendment to rename our holidays "Uniform Holiday No. 1, Uniform Holiday No. 2," and so on. Throwing in on the idea, Iowa Congressman H.R. Gross proposed to move Christmas and New Year's Day to Monday. That motion died on the floor.
   Nevertheless, the Uniform Holiday Act of 1968 passed the House, 212-83, and the Senate by voice vote, without debate. "This is the greatest thing that has happened to the travel industry since the invention of the automobile," the president of the National Association of Travel Organizations was reported to have said.
   But the words of Tennessee Representative Dan Kuykendall indicate he saw it much differently: "If we do this, 10 years from now our schoolchildren will not know what February 22 means. They will not know or care when George Washington was born. They will know that in the middle of February they will have a three-day weekend for some reason. This will come."
   In point of fact, and much to our chagrin, this has come to pass. That is why we at the American Party of Florida have endeavored to bring to the forefront patriotic observances, events and people that may otherwise get lost in the picnics, sporting events and other forms of extended entertainment.
   Throughout this weekend there will be articles in local newspapers, reports on area radio stations, as well as events staged by innumerable veterans organizations. We hope that residents will take their children to these observances and meet the people who fought, and remember those who died so that we could have the freedoms that we enjoy today.
   May we all have an enjoyable Memorial Day, and may we also look to observe it on the day it was designated.