TODAY IS ARMED FORCES DAY. Give a heartfelt thank you to all those who have served or are serving in the armed forces. It makes me think of my father in law, who spent World War II in the South Pacific charging up beaches into Japanese gun fire. He was awarded a Bronze Star.

My Sunday School class celebrated Armed Forces Day planting flowers and trees at the church. My church has a history of being confused about holidays. On Armed Forces Day, we celebrate Arbor Day. You know, we plant trees, plus some flowers and various shrubs. My only worry is the gal who picked out the plants is from California. I asked her what some of the plants were and she didn't know. Hopefully they are not avocado plants.

To top it off, in the tradition of our slightly off beat class, we planted a pink flamingo. We'll see if it is still there in the morning.

On Independence Day, our church always celebrates Armed Forces Day. We do not talk about George Washington, or the evil English, but we sing all the songs of the military and have old guys stand up with their branch of service, if they can remember. We try to have a color guard bring in the Flag if we can find guys who can still fit in their uniform.

Maybe on Labor Day, we'll open Christmas presents.

To top off the Armed Forces Day, we celebrated Mike's birthday. Mike, of course, was not in the Armed Forces. In fact, he is not even armed. But we like him, he was in charge, and it was his birthday.

Well, actually, it wasn't his birtday.