MEMORIAL DAY has become -- in the minds of some -- a day devoted to uncovering their swimming pools and barbeques. So take a moment (preferably at 3 p.m. local time) to remember what it's really about.You can read about "The Meaning of Memorial Day" with selections from American authors and statesmen, including Herman Melville, Ernie Pyle, Louisa May Alcott, Frederick Douglass, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Joyce Johnson and the "Arlington Ladies" who attend every funeral in Arlington National Cemetery, to ensure no soldier is buried alone, take more than a moment.  Re-read "A Death in the Family," as powerful as it was when Christopher Hitchens wrote it in 2007.  Revisit William Wyler's footage of the last mission of the Memphis Belle, or check the Tube for Alfred Hitchcock's footage of the liberation of the Belsen concentration camp.  The Wikipedia entry for Memorial Day notes a race track connection unrelated to the Indy 500.  It's a good day -- as good as we are likely to get -- for Sgt. Barry Sadler's No. 1 smash, "Ballad of the Green Berets."  or the movie adaptation of Gen. George S. Patton's "Speech to the Third Army."  As "Greyhawk" once wrote at the Mudville Gazette, "This is Memorial Day weekend. Enjoy it. Celebrate it - the people who died to give you that right would appreciate it. But they didn't die peaceably in their beds, these dogs who fell protecting sheep from wolves."

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GREG ALLMAN, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, the incendiary group that inspired and gave shape to both the Southern rock and jam-band movements, died on Saturday at his home in Savannah, Ga. He was 69.  The NYT will also hook you up with 10 definitive Gregg Allman songs.  Allman's manager, Michael Lehman, told NPR News Allman had finished a new album, which would be released in September.