There are presents at Christmas and candy at Halloween and fireworks on the Fourth Of July, but for me, the holiday that gives the best personal experience of the year is getting together with friends and family for Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving Day remains the least corrupted, least commercialized, least divisive, and (most importantly) the most genuine celebration of good will on the calendar.
I for one think it's a wrong turn to start having Christmas shopping ads on November 1st, and to culturally treat Thanksgiving Day as little more than a speedbump between Halloween and Christmas. I look forward to a good meal with good company tomorrow, and a chance to impart to my daughter just how much we have to be thankful for.
Thanksgiving is the most wonderful time of the year.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
The Saddest Time of Year
I began paying attention to calendars back in grade school, so as I am entering middle-age now, I've been at it for more years than I'd care to contemplate. I've got a calendar in front of me on my desk at work that has been in my possession since fourth grade in 1969. It consists of two wooden blocks with all the necessary digits to make any date from 01 to 31 and a series of plastic strips beneath the blocks with the names of the months.
When I was a schoolboy, the switch from August to September was always with a lump in my throat, as that signalled the end of summer vacation and the impending start of the school year (back then when the earth was still cooling, school never started before Labor Day). What I noticed over a period of many years is that that sense of going from the "good months" to the "bad months" was triggered in Pavlovian form by the length of the name of the months beginning with "September". The fact that the month's nine letters filled the entire plastic strip where "August" left plenty of room on either side was itself an emotional trigger.
A bit of analysis demonstrated that there is a good reason (or at least "reason") for this association of emotional state with the length of the months' names--at least there is for a school-fearing and warm-weather-loving midwestern boy such as I was. There are exactly six months with seven or more letters in their names, and they are all contiguous on the calendar: September through February. Conversely, there are exactly six months with less than seven letters in their names, and they are all contiguous: March through August. The long-named months represent a period where the weather and the school year are getting worse, whereas the short-named months represent the opposite--a period in which hope is returning, weather is improving, and school gives way to a summer which at least seems as if it will never end.
It's been many years since I've been on a school calendar, and these days, stifling hot summer days are almost as bad as frigid winter. But the youthful association still remains. As I get set to flip the plastic strip on the calendar from the months with less-than-seven letters in their names to the months with seven-or-more letters, I can't help but feel that the saddest time of year is beginning once more.
When I was a schoolboy, the switch from August to September was always with a lump in my throat, as that signalled the end of summer vacation and the impending start of the school year (back then when the earth was still cooling, school never started before Labor Day). What I noticed over a period of many years is that that sense of going from the "good months" to the "bad months" was triggered in Pavlovian form by the length of the name of the months beginning with "September". The fact that the month's nine letters filled the entire plastic strip where "August" left plenty of room on either side was itself an emotional trigger.
A bit of analysis demonstrated that there is a good reason (or at least "reason") for this association of emotional state with the length of the months' names--at least there is for a school-fearing and warm-weather-loving midwestern boy such as I was. There are exactly six months with seven or more letters in their names, and they are all contiguous on the calendar: September through February. Conversely, there are exactly six months with less than seven letters in their names, and they are all contiguous: March through August. The long-named months represent a period where the weather and the school year are getting worse, whereas the short-named months represent the opposite--a period in which hope is returning, weather is improving, and school gives way to a summer which at least seems as if it will never end.
It's been many years since I've been on a school calendar, and these days, stifling hot summer days are almost as bad as frigid winter. But the youthful association still remains. As I get set to flip the plastic strip on the calendar from the months with less-than-seven letters in their names to the months with seven-or-more letters, I can't help but feel that the saddest time of year is beginning once more.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Secret Origin of calendar boy
My wife called me "calendar boy", and it stuck.
Back when the earth was cooling in the 1960s, I discovered a sort of passion for clocks and calendars. I used to draw my own full-year calendars by hand. The internet wasn't even a twinkle in Al Gore's eye yet, and computers were big things that filled buildings. No, I mean I drew them on paper by hand. All twelve months at a time. All 365 days (366 for leap years). To keep from getting too bored by the repetitiveness, I came up with "tricks", such as doing a COLUMN at a time rather than a row. So, all the Tuesdays from January-June, for example.
It didn't take me long to inadvertently memorize the columns. 5-12-19-26. 3-10-17-24-31. Etc. I can do it in my sleep now. It also didn't take me long to notice that, if a month has 31 days, the next month starts three weekdays later. So if a January begins on a Tuesday, the following February begins on a Friday. It's two weekdays for a 30-day month. That combined with the ever-helpful poem beginning "Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November" taught me all I needed to know about designing a calendar for a given year.
Most years start one weekday later than the previous year (it's two days later if the previous year was a leap year), A helpful corrolary is the fact that the entire calendar cycle repeats itself every 28 years. This year (2010) began on a Friday and was two years after a leap-year. 28 years ago (1982) not only ALSO began on a Friday, but was also two years after a leap-year. Put it all together, and there is enough information here to determine the weekday of any given date. What day of the week did D-Day fall on? Let's see, that would be June 6, 1944. Well, the 6th of this month (July 2010) was a Tuesday (I know because the Fourth of July was a Sunday this year). June is a 30-day month (see poem) so June 6 was two weekdays earlier than Tuesday--Sunday. 28 years earlier than 2010 was 1982, and 28 years prior to that was 1954, so we know June 6 was also a Sunday that year. 10 years earlier than that would be ten weekdays earlier, or an entire week plus 3 weekdays earlier EXCEPT for the fact that two leap-year days fall in that interim as well, making it 5 weekdays earler. 5 weekdays earlier than Sunday is Tuesday. Bingo! June 6, 1944 was a Tuesday.
See, anyone can do it. The trick is caring enough to actually do the math. That's my power.
This is my excuse to start a blog. It's not always going to be ONLY about calendars. I like comic books a lot, so I may talk about them. I'm pretty heavily opinionated politically, and while I don't want to alienate anyone immediately in my first blog post, my leanings will become clear fairly shortly. I'm also an amateur writer, so this blog exists for its own sake as an outlet for that writer persona. It will evolve into whatever its going to be on its own.
But there'll always be room for calendar stuff.
Back when the earth was cooling in the 1960s, I discovered a sort of passion for clocks and calendars. I used to draw my own full-year calendars by hand. The internet wasn't even a twinkle in Al Gore's eye yet, and computers were big things that filled buildings. No, I mean I drew them on paper by hand. All twelve months at a time. All 365 days (366 for leap years). To keep from getting too bored by the repetitiveness, I came up with "tricks", such as doing a COLUMN at a time rather than a row. So, all the Tuesdays from January-June, for example.
It didn't take me long to inadvertently memorize the columns. 5-12-19-26. 3-10-17-24-31. Etc. I can do it in my sleep now. It also didn't take me long to notice that, if a month has 31 days, the next month starts three weekdays later. So if a January begins on a Tuesday, the following February begins on a Friday. It's two weekdays for a 30-day month. That combined with the ever-helpful poem beginning "Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November" taught me all I needed to know about designing a calendar for a given year.
Most years start one weekday later than the previous year (it's two days later if the previous year was a leap year), A helpful corrolary is the fact that the entire calendar cycle repeats itself every 28 years. This year (2010) began on a Friday and was two years after a leap-year. 28 years ago (1982) not only ALSO began on a Friday, but was also two years after a leap-year. Put it all together, and there is enough information here to determine the weekday of any given date. What day of the week did D-Day fall on? Let's see, that would be June 6, 1944. Well, the 6th of this month (July 2010) was a Tuesday (I know because the Fourth of July was a Sunday this year). June is a 30-day month (see poem) so June 6 was two weekdays earlier than Tuesday--Sunday. 28 years earlier than 2010 was 1982, and 28 years prior to that was 1954, so we know June 6 was also a Sunday that year. 10 years earlier than that would be ten weekdays earlier, or an entire week plus 3 weekdays earlier EXCEPT for the fact that two leap-year days fall in that interim as well, making it 5 weekdays earler. 5 weekdays earlier than Sunday is Tuesday. Bingo! June 6, 1944 was a Tuesday.
See, anyone can do it. The trick is caring enough to actually do the math. That's my power.
This is my excuse to start a blog. It's not always going to be ONLY about calendars. I like comic books a lot, so I may talk about them. I'm pretty heavily opinionated politically, and while I don't want to alienate anyone immediately in my first blog post, my leanings will become clear fairly shortly. I'm also an amateur writer, so this blog exists for its own sake as an outlet for that writer persona. It will evolve into whatever its going to be on its own.
But there'll always be room for calendar stuff.
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