WE HAVE DEVELOPED a traditition in our family and, over the passing years, we look forward to it as much as Thanksgiving, Christmas or any of the other federal holidays.

We call it "Decoration Day," not an original name by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly a solemn day of remembrance when we pause our daily pursuit of life's blessings and reflect upon how they came about.

Seventy years ago, when I was a child, the 30th of May was not called Memorial Day. It was Decoration Day and it was a holiday observed by "decorating" the graves of our ancestors. We didn't distinguish whether they had fallen in battle, died in a tragic accident or succumbed to an unknown illness. Sometimes, their death was simply the result of old age.

They were our grandparents, our mothers and fathers, a sister or a brother and the normal list of relatives, including aunts and uncles or cousins and nephews. In many cases, thhey were just very good friends.
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IT'S AN "ALL-AMERICAN" holiday, not celebrated in other nations, because it originated from our own Civil War. The name was changed from Decoration Day to Memorial Day after World War II when there was a special patrotic urge in America to recognize the men and women who had served in our military forces.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated it would be a federal holiday upon which we would show our respect to those who had seen action or paid the ultimate price by giving their lives for the country.

The observation of Memorial Day began in Columbus, Miss., April 25, 1866. A group of women visited a cemetery nearby to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers who were killed in the bloody battle of Shiloh. They were disturbed by the neglected graves of Union soldiers buried nearby and placed some of their flowers on them as well. In Texas, the holiday is remembered as Confederate Heroes Day and is observed on April 26.

Congress got into the act in 1967 when an enterprising soul decided it should be celebrated each year on the same day, preferably during the fourth week of May. It would be nice, he reasoned, if it fell on a Monday so all of could enjoy a "three-day" holiday to usher in the summer. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but our family still celebrates our "Decoration Day" on the Saturday before Memorial Day. We do it each year by making a 300-,mile trip across Minnesota to eight cemeteries and laying flowers at the graves of our ancestors.
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WE DRIVE from our home in Eden Prairie, a suburb of the Twin Cities, to Alexandria, where my great-grandparents homesteaded a "Century Farm" in 1892. My great-grandparents, my grandparents and several of their children are buried there beneath a stately granite monument that marks their final resting place.

Then, we head for Willmar, where my wife's folks are buried, and make stops at nearby cemeteries in Kandiyohi, Grove City, Litchfield and Dassel. We finish the day in Renville, a tiny rural community where our relatives settled as pioneers and started our far-flung family group, which includes relatives in the Marble Falls area.

Renville is where the "fun" part of our day begins. We always get together with "second" cousins, who we never see any other time of the year. It is a jovial celebration and one we look forward to with special favor each Memorial Day weekend.

Our hosts prepare an old-fashioned country dinner that combines Easter, the Fourth of July and New Year's Day into one. We visit, partake of the dining, visit some more, eat again and, grudgingly, begin our trip home to resume our daily lives.
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YOU CAN IMAGINE it's a very special day of the year for our family. My wife painstakingly plans what kind of flowers we will place on the graves. This year, we are once again using artificial flowers after using fresh flowers in the past.

But, we enjoy our entire trip. We like driving through the coujntryside, beautiful in its own way as is the Hill Country if Texas. The farm crops we grew up with as children have pushed their way out if the rich, black soil. We guess among ourselves if the corn will be knee "knee-high by the Fourth of July and we wonder if there really are 10,000 lakes in Minnesota.

However, the reason for our trip is never forgotten. We dwell on the hardships our ancestors faced as they moved rocks, cleared forests, planted fields and harvested crops. We envy their commitment as they traveled by Conestoga wagon across the roadless countryside without benefit of electronic guidance systems or cellular telephones.

We also wonder if our children and the generations beyond will share our memories of the past. Or will "decoration day" as we remember it become one more three-day holiday to kick off another summer?