Good question! I would have a higher level JMenu like the following
JMenuPower. Just throw in the JMenuItem object to it and it will take
care of the rest.

//Now JMenu looks "primitive" and JMenuPower is relatively higher level
public class JMenuPower extends JMenu
{

    public JMenuPower(String s)
    {
        super(s);
    }

    void addMenuItemAndListener(JMenuItem mi, ActionListener al)
    {
        mi.addActionListener(al);
        this.add(mi);
    }

}

To use it:

<code>
public class MemoGUI extends JFrame implements ActionListener
{
    ....

        JMenuPower memoMenu = new JMenuPower("Memos"); //my own
JMenuPower class
        JMenuItem m;

        m = new JMenuItem("JMenuItem1");
        memoMenu.addMenuItemAndListener(m, this);

        m = new JMenuItem("JMenuItem2");
        memoMenu.addMenuItemAndListener(m, this);

</code>