Sunday, March 10, 2013

March 11: Johnny Appleseed Day? Again? No!

We here at The Blog of Days feel compelled to gripe about the many duplications, overlaps, and seemingly pointless repetitions on the calendar. We pointed out several different peanut butter or beer days, for example.

Today provides another splendid example: Most of the Usual Suspects proclaim Monday, March 11 as Johnny Appleseed Day -- and most of these fail to even note that these same sites also touted September 26 as Johnny Appleseed Day, too.

Kudos, however, to Usual Suspect Holiday Insights for not only acknowledging the duplication, but attempting to explain it: September 26 is the birthday of Johnny Appleseed; March 11 may be the anniversary of his death. And Holiday Insights admits that even the date of Appleseed's death is uncertain (Wikipedia, for example, says Johnny Appleseed died on March 18). Better still, Holiday Insights suggests that only one of these dates be remembered as Johnny Appleseed Day -- and it suggests that Johnny Appleseed's September 26 birthday, which coincides with the annual apple harvest, is a better choice.

We concur.

Don't celebrate Johnny Appleseed Day on Monday.

Is this an object of worship?
Usual Suspects Days of the Year and Brownielocks.com offer World Plumbing Day as an alternative for Monday.

Monday is also Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day and Napping Day, the latter being established to cope with the consequences of the switch to Daylight Savings Time. Please note, however, The Blog of Days is not responsible for the consequence of your choosing to observe Napping Day by putting your head down on your desk at work at anytime on Monday.

Monday is also National Worship of Tools Day. Yes, we understand the cliche about men and hardware stores. We know that many people make their living using tools -- plumbers, for example (in keeping with one of the events of the day). We nevertheless find it hard to believe that there are really those who carry their fondness for tools to the point of 'worship.'

But, hey, who listens to us? Go ahead, pour yourself a stiff applejack and bow in the direction of your home workshop.

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