Ants in My Pants, a Memory

Memorial Day Weekend. This holiday has been around since the years after the American Civil War. It was initially called Decoration Day, and it was the day that post Civil War Americans decorated the graves of their soldiers. Then, it became traditional, for families, to use the holiday (which used to be May 30th, whatever day of the week on which it fell), to decorate the graves of their family members, soldiers or not.
It's a nice coincidence that late May, is the time that many indigenous flowers and shrubs are in bloom. Native flowers have always made showy cemetery floral displays. Lilacs and Dogwoods, Peonies and Iris (we called them Flags and they were always deep purple) were the choices of my Grandmother Wintle. Those things flourished in her yard and every last blossom was destined for the cemetery.
Peonies (pronounced pee OHH nies) start to bud out in early May. Grandma Wintle cut those buds, with very long stems, and placed them in Mason Jars, full of water, in her refrigerator. There they stayed for a month, in the cooler, until we took them to the cemetery.
Now, Peony buds are chock full of teeny black ants. There were never ants in the Grandma's refrigerator. That would have been unacceptable to Grandma. The cool air must have made the ants hibernate or something. The iris and the lilac (minus the ants) went in the fridge, too.
Early on Decoration Day, we would haul those jars outside, to the back seat of the car. Sister and I would be in the back seat and jars would be placed between our feet and of course we had to hold some, too.
Off we'd go. Grandpa was driving and as the car bumped over the bricks (our town had brick streets), water would spill out and soak our ankle socks. The ants would warm up and start crawling up our legs and onto our arms. The ants went into our shirts and up into our underpants. It was awful.
It never did any good to complain and because our hands were full, we just had to bear the torture.
To this day, no Peony blossom has ever been allowed to enter my home. They stay outside where they and their ants belong!
Artificial Flowers are very beautiful, these days.

Great God. We thank you for our memories. We wonder at the beauty of your universe. We have many blessings.