Memorial Day 2026

This isn't just a podcast, it's a Texas state of mind.

Transcript

A Walk Back To Small-Town America

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi there. This is Tweed Scott from the Texan Edge. I'd like to take you back for a moment to a place that just doesn't really exist anymore, at least not the way that it used

Living Inside A Rockwell Painting

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to. I grew up in what I like to call Norman Rockwell America. I didn't know that at the time, of course. When you're a kid, you don't think in art history terms, you just ride your bike down Main Street, you wave at the barber sweeping his sidewalk, you smell somebody's laundry on the line, and you think, well, this is just how the world is. It was the kind of place that Rockwell painted, the boy in his Sunday suit fidgeting in church, the small town parade with flags just a little faded, the soda fountain where the biggest controversy of the day was who got the last cherry coke? Looking back now, I realize I didn't just see those paintings, I lived in them. And the people in those paintings, I knew those people. Maybe not those exact faces that Rockwell saw, but people just like 'em. Man unlocking the hardware story Don, the mailman who knew every name and every dog on his route, and the school teacher who never stopped believing that spelling and manners mattered. They were my neighbors. They were the background characters in my childhood. They were the ones who quietly made sure the world worked the way it was supposed to.

The Greatest Generation Next Door

SPEAKER_00 1:26

But there was something else going on in that picture, something I didn't fully understand at the time. I grew up surrounded by heroes, not the cape wearing spotlight stealing kind. I'm talking about the greatest generation, the men and women who came of age during the Great Depression, and then turned around and fought, and worked and sacrificed their way through World War II. They were all around me, living right there on those quiet streets. My whole neighborhood was like that. Come to think of it, so was my whole town. My little league coach had once landed in Europe. The guy pumping gas had island names in the Pacific that he couldn't quite say out loud without pausing. The man who repaired our roof once had worn a uniform so long that the sun had bleached it in places, but he rarely talked about that. In fact, most of them never did. As a kid, I didn't know the names of the battles. I didn't know the strategies or the casualty counts. I just knew these men and women carried themselves differently, even when they were relaxed. There was a steadiness about them, a gravity. I sensed even in my young, clumsy way, these are special people. But here's the thing, I only really understand that now. Many of those true heroes weren't there anymore because they never came home.

Why Memorial Day Feels Heavier

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Memorial Day exists for them. We honor veterans on Veterans Day, and we should. But Memorial Day is something quieter and heavier. It's the day we stop and remember the ones whose stories ended in a place far from home, perhaps on a beach, in a sky, beneath an ocean, in a field with no post guard charm, so that our stories could go on. They never got to be the dad coaching the little league team, or the mom helping with homework, or the gray haired neighbor sweeping his porch. Their empty places were filled by brothers, by sisters, by friends, but the original owners of those lives never got to live out their Rockwell America. That's what makes Memorial Day

When Patriotism Got Complicated

SPEAKER_00 3:41

sacred. Now, over the years I've watched something change in this country. The flags are still there, although doesn't seem as many, but the feeling is different too. Patriotism doesn't seem as simple as it once was. Polls will tell you that fewer Americans say that they are extremely proud to be American, and that younger generations especially are much more hesitant to say those words out loud. And I get it, the world's gotten to be pretty noisy. Our problems are on full display twenty four hours a day. Our disagreements feel bigger. Our trust in institutions is certainly lower. Somewhere along the way, love of country got tangled up with anger and slogans and team colors until a lot of folks weren't sure what to do with it anymore. But here's what I believe deep in my bones. Whatever else we argue about, Memorial Day cuts through it all, because on this day, patriotism isn't about politics or parties or who you voted for last time around. It's about a debt. A debt we could never possibly repay, but dare not ignore. It's about that long, quiet line of men and women, many from little towns that looked a whole lot like Rockwell's canvases, who stepped away from everything familiar and safe and walked toward danger on purpose. Not because they were fearless, but because something in them said if not me, then who? They left jobs unfinished, dreams half built, front doors that they would never walk through again. They gave up the chance to grow old in exchange for the chance that we might. And that's the thing that stops me cold. They gave up their future, but they did not surrender ours. So when I look back on my Norman Rockwell childhood, you know, the parades, the flags, the neighborhood, the cookouts, the safe ordinary days, I see it differently now. I see it as something that was given to me, handed down by people I never met, purchased by lives that I never knew, preserved by neighbors that I saw every week, but never fully understood. And I feel two things at once deep gratitude and a little sting of conviction. Because if you and I were handed all of this a country with all of its flaws, all of its beauty by people who never got to enjoy the things that we take for granted, and then we don't have the luxury of cynicism. We don't have the right to treat this like it's nothing special. We can be honest about our problems, and we should be, but we can't forget the price that was paid for us to have the freedom to wrestle with those problems in the

Three Ways To Honor Sacrifice

SPEAKER_00 6:36

first place. What do we do with all that? Well, I don't think Memorial Day is asking us to live in permanent sadness. Those we honor today didn't die so that we could spend the rest of our lives walking around hanging our heads down. What they would ask of us is simpler and harder. First, remember them. Remember that Memorial Day is not just the unofficial start of summer, not just a sale, and it's not just a long weekend. It is a day set aside to stop, to be still, and say, We know what you did, and we know what it cost. And we will not forget. Visit a grave, read a name, tell a child a story, do something, anything that says this matters to me. Secondly, live it in a way that honors the gift that they gave all of us. Maybe that starts small, like treating your neighbor with decency, even when you disagree about some things, voting thoughtfully, serving your community, carrying yourself with the kind of quiet responsibility those old World War II neighbors had. You don't have to wear a uniform to honor their sacrifice. You just have to be a citizen who's worthy of it. And finally, reclaim a gentler kind of patriotism. Not the loud kind that has to drown everyone else out, but the steady kind that says I know my country's not perfect, but I love her, and thankful to those who gave everything so that she could still be here, struggling, striving, growing, arguing, and trying again, stepping up and starting all over again. That is the kind of patriotism I was raised around, and even if I didn't have the words for it back then, it showed up in front yard flags that flew every day, not just on holidays, in hands over hearts at a ball game, in the quiet way grown men would go still, when a certain old song or a certain date on the calendar rolled around. They didn't brag about what they had done. Rarely did I'd ever hear that. They just stood a little straighter, and today, on memorial day, I think we're called to do the same thing to stand a little straighter, to lift our eyes from our phones, from the headlines, from the petty arguments, and remember the long line of Americans. Many from towns that look just like your hometown and mine, who gave up their own shot at a peaceful, ordinary life so that we could live ours. We do we owe them more than one day, but we can start

A Quiet Moment Of Thanks

SPEAKER_00 9:18

with this one. So wherever you are as you hear this, at home, on the road, standing by a grill or standing by a grave, take a moment with me. Think of those who never came home. Whisper a thank you, and then as you go back into your life, try to live it in a way that it would make them proud. They gave us the kind of country Norman Rockwell love to paint. It's our turn to pick up the brush, and with whatever days that we've got left, add our own small strokes of gratitude, responsibility, and grace. That to me is how we honor then. That is our Memorial Day. Thank you for your time. I'm Tweed Scott.