David Murdock Column: On National Days (and a little fun to keep us out of ruts)
If there ever were a website designed especially for me, it’s the National Day Calendar (nationaldaycalendar.com). It’s free, it’s fun, and … I don’t know how on earth I found it. The most likely explanation is my well-documented love of comic strips.
I love comic strips so much that it’s worth it to pay for an internet “comic service” to access quite a lot of them every day. I’d always noticed that some comic strip artist or the other seemed aware of various little-known commemorations and wondered why, and the next thing I know I’ve got a daily email from the National Day Calendar website that chronicles that day’s particular “national days.”
And it’s almost always more than one.
There’s even a daily comic strip by Dave Whamond titled “Day by Dave” that highlights one.
Last week — March 15, to be precise — Whamond highlighted “National Everything You Think Is Wrong Day.” The National Day Calendar website describes it as “a day where decision-making should be avoided, as your thoughts are (according to the founder of this holiday) wrong. It is also a day created for some people to realize that they are not always right.”
And, as usual, the National Day Calendar has a section on the history of each commemorated day and suggestions to “celebrate.” There is even a “Classroom” section with class activities for teachers up to the eighth grade, a “Recipes” section (for those days that highlight a food and a “Store” (which includes printed calendars). Of course, there is a free subscription option — give them an email and they send a daily notice of what “day” it is. That explains my newfound knowledge of … well … what “day” it is.
I have been having an enormous amount of fun with it.
The thing that has most surprised me is just how many commemorations each day usually has. Culturally, we are aware of some of them — like St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. However, March 17 is also, not coincidentally, National Corned Beef and Cabbage Day.
International Women’s Day on March 8 is widely covered in the media, but March 8 is also National Oregon Day, National Proofreading Day and National Peanut Cluster Day. Some commemorative days “float” — and March 8 was therefore National Registered Dietician Nutritionist Day, which falls on the second Wednesday of March every year.
One thing that I’ve noticed about these commemorative days is that many of them started only recently, quite a few in the 21st century. I’m guessing that it has something to do with the internet and social media — in other words, it’s so simple to get a message out there using those media that it’s made it attractive for various groups to declare commemorative days to spread that message. In the spirit of National Everything You Think Is Wrong Day, though, I might be wrong.
This also brings up the subject of commemorative weeks and months. Just wandering around on it, I found separate sections highlighting those two. Looking ahead to April, there is no mention of Community College Month — a commemoration I obviously care about very much — but it does mention National Poetry Month, another one about which I deeply care.
Why is all this so important? Some of these commemorative days highlight serious things — like International Women’s Day or the just-passed National Black History Month every February. Those two commemorations are well-covered in the national media when they occur. Many of the commemorations are light-hearted, however.
I first became aware of “national days,” for example, because of National Talk Like a Pirate Day every Sept. 19. According to the website, it was created in 1995 by John Baur and Mark Summers. All I knew is that it had been around for a long time. The national media cover it … but only when there is no “serious” news on that day, obviously. It’s culturally engrained enough that I knew the date without having to check. And there are others — like National Star Wars day on May 4, which grew organically out of the wordplay of the date (“May the Fourth Be With You”).
Those lighthearted celebrations “break up the day,” and that’s why they’re important. Our days tend to become repetitive after a while, and little bits of fun distract us from falling into ruts. I know that my days certainly look alike — and it’s nice to have some lighthearted fun with them. In the spirit of National Everything You Think Is Wrong Day, though, I might be wrong.
Some are “serious fun” or maybe, “fun serious.” Take National Poetry Month, for example. I’ve devoted much of my life to the study of poetry … and it grieves me that poetry is really no longer read for entertainment. We see it as such a serious affair that we’ve “serious-ed” the fun right out of it. Poetry delights me, and I like having a commemoration to share that enjoyment.
Some commemorations are important because they highlight serious issues about which we might be unaware. March 15 was also National Shoe the World Day, for example, and I honestly hadn’t thought much about the issue of the 500 million people around the world who don’t have shoes. Until I saw it on National Day Calendar. Well done.
David Murdock is an English instructor at Gadsden State Community College. He can be contacted at murdockcolumn@yahoo.com. The opinions reflected are his own.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: David Murdock looks at the National Day Calendar
