Remember reason for holiday today

Dear Readers: Memorial Day has become a three-day holiday of picnics and cookouts. But there is a reason for this commemoration, so please remember the servicemen and women who died serving their country. Consider visiting a veterans hospital or military cemetery and paying your respects. At 3 p.m. local time, the National Moment of Remembrance asks for 60 seconds of silence to remember U.S. service members who gave their lives in the line of duty. And if you have a flag, it is appropriate to display it at half-staff until noon.

“Last Monday in May” by John T. Bird of Birmingham, Ala.

We pause to remember those who died

with so much courage

so much pride.

They’ll never come back

but memories endure

to remind us of freedom: fragile, pure.

We’re worthy of their sacrifice

if we pause each day

not just on the last Monday in May.

Dear Annie: Who decided when someone becomes an adult? Legally, you can vote at 18. You can obtain a gun or cigarettes and sign up for the military without your parents’ permission. But you can’t drink until age 21. Who makes these rules?

My 18-year-old son recently needed surgery. When I called with a question about the bill, the doctors and hospital staff refused to answer me. I was told no one could speak to me because my son is an adult. I politely said, “Excuse me, but that ‘adult’ is still in high school and lives in my home, and I am paying the bill.”

They say it’s for reasons of privacy, yet this “adult” boy walked through the living room in his underwear last week, and any idiot can find lots of personal information about him on the Internet.

– A.

Dear A.: HIPAA grants medical privacy to all adults, and there are valid reasons for this. The way to get information for your son is to ask him to give his physician written consent for you to have access to his medical records and information. If he expects you to pay the bills, he should be happy to do this.