National Polka Lovers Day, Book Lover's Day, Veep Day

Last year's post on National Polka Lovers Day remains one of the most popular ever published on this blog. This means one of two things: Either there is a hitherto unsuspected yearning among the huddled masses for all-things-Myron-Floren or, for reasons one can only speculate about, spammers really like polka.

Be that as it may, tomorrow, August 9 is National Polka Lovers Day. We hope your toes don't get stomped too badly amidst the gaiety and glamor.

Last year we suggested that Send an Email Day was the leading alternative to Polka Day, and Usual Suspect American Greetings does offer it as a suggestion for Friday.

But several of the Usual Suspects state that Friday will also be Rice Pudding Day and Veep Day.

Nobody knows or cares where Rice Pudding Day came from.

Given American ignorance of history, the origins of Veep Day may also be obscure to anyone under 50, but it was on August 9, 1974 that Vice President Gerald R. Ford succeeded Richard M. Nixon as President of the United States. Nixon had resigned in disgrace. Ford would soon pardon Nixon, paving the way for Jimmy Carter's election in 1976. However, for at least a brief moment in August 1974 most American found in Mr. Ford a breath of fresh air. Addressing the nation after taking office, President Ford stated "our long national nightmare is over."

Usual Suspect Holiday Insights says that Friday is also Book Lovers Day and Usual Suspect Brownielocks.com adds that Friday is also the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, a microminiholidayette courtesy of the United Nations. If you live where you were born and where your parents and grandparents were born before you, Indigenous Peoples Day might be about you, but probably isn't, even though you are, in the ordinary sense, indigenous to the region of your birth. On the other hand, if your ancestors were cruelly uprooted and forced to settle on worthless land where only casinos now grow, Indigenous Peoples Day might actually be about you, even though you are strongly inclined to reject any notion that you are indigenous to the region where you now reside, at least when the word "indigenous" is given its common, ordinary definition. Actually, if you take a long enough view, no human is indigenous to any part of the world except Africa, from whence we all came. If all this confuses you, well, you can always celebrate Polka Lovers Day.