Concerts on the Square begin June 2nd with the Port Allegany High School Jazz Band. The music will be great, the food will be great, the company will be wonderful and hopefully the weather will be, too! There will be concerts every Thursday at 6 p.m., on the Town Square during June, July and August with the exception of Old Home Week. The concerts are free! and very enjoyable. Members of the Women's Club work very hard all summer long to provide this entertainment and I'm hoping everyone takes advantage of it as much as possible. I understand there are other things going on as well...in the month of June, I have my daughter's birthday on the 2nd and two Rotary events on Thursday nights in June. I'll try to get to the square as often as possible...but if I'm not there, it's not because I don't want to be!

Speaking of being on the square - that's where I was Monday. And if you think I'm only there because I was taking pictures, think again. I attended Memorial Day Services long before I started working for the Reporter Argus. As I looked across the square, I wondered where everyone was. The ceremony on the Brooklynside Bridge lasted about half an hour. The one on the square was probably about the same, time-wise. There were a few people at the bridge ceremony...and quite a few more on the square. I counted about 75...but a few more people...maybe 10, came sometime after the ceremony started. I didn't count the members of the band or people participating in the ceremony...just those in the crowd.

The concerts on the Town Square usually get more people than were at the Memorial Day Service. If it were Old Home Week, the square would be packed....if it was Car Show day...it would be packed. The football field was filled for the first Alumni game. What does football have to do with the Memorial Day Service? It's not held on the town square. I guess I thought of football because when they spoke of someone who died serving our country they mentioned that he was on one of the undefeated Gator football teams. It seemed sort of odd to me that the Veterans remember that this man played football but that the football players didn't seem to remember that he was a Veteran.

To attend one service would take about a half an hour of your time...to attend both...about an hour or so...to attend both and the delicious luncheon provided by the Auxiliary....two and a half hours total. Doesn't seem like a whole lot when you think of the holidays, the births, graduations, weddings, funerals and all the service people miss to protect us.

It doesn't always work out to be free to attend the Memorial Day Services, but for most of us, it's one of those things where "I was going to go, but got busy mowing, planting, washing the car, getting caught up on laundry, or housework or sleep"... it sure would be nice to go to the square and see it filled next year. Everyone has a year to plan their schedule around it...see what you can do!

I've been to concerts, banquets, ball games, awards ceremonies and the like. I didn't send a lot of pictures up for the Argus this week, mainly because there is a back-log of things that have yet to run and also because I am still looking for information for some of the pictures. Graduation is Sunday...I'll try to get back on track before July! You many think that's a long time, but when everyone tries to pack a year's worth of events into one little month, it's the best I can do!