Be honest now: Did you know April 30 was International Jazz Day?

Tuesday, April 30 will be International Jazz Day, a co-production of UNESCO and the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz.

Tuesday is also Honesty Day. Honesty is the best policy most of the time. Of course this may not be the case when your significant other asks, "Do these pants make me look fat?" And Tuesday will be Hairstyle Appreciation Day... another one that might be difficult to carry off if you're trying to observe Honesty Day.

April 30 is also Spank Out Day. This day is for those who believe that sparing the rod will not spoil the child.

One or two of you may have noticed that this blog commenced operations on April 30, 2012, thus making Tuesday our first blogiversary. (We told you last year that April 30 was Consumer Protection Day in Thailand.)

There really was a Casey Jones, and he did indeed die in a train wreck on April 30, 1900. Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945.

Dance for joy: Monday is Zipper Day

Drawing from the application for the patent for
the "separable fastener," awarded April 29, 1913.

And Monday, April 29 is not your average, ordinary comes-once-a-year Zipper Day either. No siree Bob. This is the zipper's centennial, the 100th anniversary of the day on which the U.S. Patent Office awarded Gideon Sundback a patent for a "separable fastener" (Sundback would receive another patent, in 1917, for an upgraded "separable fastener"). According to Wikipedia, the name "zipper" was bestowed on the device 90 years ago, by the B.F. Goodrich Company, which wanted a snappier name for the device it installed on its new galoshes. The name stuck. As zippers sometimes do.

Monday is also International Dance Day. April 29 was selected for this observance because it is the anniversary of the birth of Jean-Georges Noverre (born April 29, 1727), the inventor of the modern ballet. (Now we know who to blame.)

Duke Ellington was born April 29, 1899. Monday is also the 150th anniversary of the birth of William Randolph Hearst (born April 29, 1863) and the 79th birthday of Hall of Fame shortstop Luis (Little Looie) Aparicio.

Japanese Emperor Hirohito was born on April 29, 1901, and Usual Suspect Holiday Insights says that Greenery Day is celebrated in Japan in his honor.

April 28 is Workers' Memorial Day

Just about all the Usual Suspects agree: Sunday, April 28 will be Workers' Memorial Day, a day to honor and mourn those who have died in workplace accidents -- and to call public attention to the continuing need for safer working conditions. The linked site says that worldwide, each year, two million people die from work-related accidents and disease. The site continues, "Worldwide, one worker dies every 15 seconds and in the U.S., 14 workers die every day due to preventable incidents."

Wikipedia says that Workers' Memorial Day has been observed in the United States since 1989.

Sunday will also be National Blueberry Pie Day and Kiss Your Mate Day. It will also be Astronomy Day, so spend some time looking up at the sky Sunday night -- unless you're at work, of course. If you're at work, keep yours eyes on the tasks before you. Don't get hurt!

Shaky microminiholidayettes abound on April 27

You probably haven't heard of any of these, but here goes....

Saturday, April 27 will be Matanzas Mule Day. It seems that on April 27, 1898, in an early engagement of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. Navy bombarded the Cuban port of Matanzas, on the north shore of the island, some 56 miles east of Havana. Supposedly, the only casualty of the bombardment was a mule... thus Matanzas Mule Day. This is one the Navy vet in your family will probably not want to celebrate.

A number of the Usual Suspects say Saturday will be Morse Code Day, honoring the anniversary of the birth of Samuel Morse (born April 27, 1791), the inventor of the Morse Code. While we are perfectly willing to accept that Morse Code would be better for texting -- far easier on the thumbs -- than trying to accurately strike the little tiny alphanumeric keys on the modern phone, we know of absolutely no one who agrees with us. Does anyone actually use Morse Code these days? We doubt if anyone's neighborhood tap will offer any Morse Code specials Saturday evening.

Usual Suspect Brownielocks.com offers Eeyore's Birthday as a possibility Saturday -- and Eeyore's Birthday is indeed celebrated, in Austin, Texas. Wikipedia describes the day as a kind of hippie holiday, but it does raise funds for local non-profit groups. And this will be the 50th Anniversary of the event... even if it isn't Eeyore's real birthday.

© 1948 Wide World Photos

Some of the Usual Suspects say that April 27 is Babe Ruth Day. We're skeptical.

There's no question that Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler declared April 27, 1947 to be Babe Ruth Day. The Bambino (who was already fighting a losing battle with the cancer that would take his life in 1948) appeared at Yankee Stadium that day, and addressed the crowd. But this wasn't even the Babe's last trip to The House That Ruth Built; according to Wikipedia Ruth attended another day in his honor in September 1947 and again, for the final time, on June 13, 1948. That's Nat Fein's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of that bittersweet moment above. Ruth was so weak by this time, he used his bat as a cane.

If you're looking for baseball-related celebrations Saturday, we can suggest instead that Hall of Famers Rogers Hornsby and Enos Slaughter were both born on April 27 (in 1896 and 1916, respectively).

Usual Suspect Days of the Year advises that Saturday will also be Sense of Smell Day. Well, maybe yes... and maybe no. There is a Wikipedia article that states, "The Sense of Smell Institute is a research and education division of The Fragrance Foundation" and it is this Sense of Smell Institute that sponsors National Sense of Smell Day on the last Saturday each April "at children’s museums and science centers across the United States." But we looked at the footnotes of the Wikipedia article... the alleged links for the Fragrance Foundation and the Sense of Smell Institute take us to this page -- where we can find no verification at all that there are any Sense of Smell Day festivities in the offing this year. So celebrate this if you wish... but it smells fishy to us.

Saturday will also be National Prime Rib Day. Although prime rib is delicious, it's not much to make a holiday over -- but at least this one is apparently non-controversial.

We start Friday with Arbor Day in the U.S.

Watch It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown on
Friday to celebrate the holiday

Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday in April (this year, the last Friday arrives tomorrow, April 26).

Conceived by J. Sterling Morton in 1872, Arbor Day is a day to plant (and care for) trees.

You can think of Arbor Day as sort of Earth Day's great-grandpappy.

Friday will also be National Pretzel Day (don't get bent out of shape) and Hug an Australian Day. Australian plumbers have it made this week (you'll recall that today is Hug a Plumber Day).

Marcus Aurelius was born on April 26, 121. Carol Burnett was born on April 26, 1933. (Happy 80th; we're so glad we've had this time together, Miss Burnett.)

The Chernobyl disaster began on April 26, 1986. Usual Suspect History.com says that, "In the explosion and ensuing fire, more than 50 tons of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere." This was an entirely avoidable event: The world's worst nuclear disaster began as a poorly-thought-out electrical-engineering experiment by less-than-optimally-trained plant technicians. The entire Ukrainian city of Pripyat was lost to the disaster (the whole population had to be evacuated). The worst of the fallout, however, seems to have rained down on neighboring Belarus. There, the Chernobyl disaster is recalled each year in a somber Chernobyl Commemoration Day. A huge exclusion zone still surrounds the Chernobyl site, and will for many years to come. Although the old Soviet Union acknowledged no more than 31 or 32 fatalities in the disaster, other estimates put the death toll at over 5,000... and continuing.

Take Your Daughters & Sons to Work Day on April 25

April 25 is the 20th anniversary of Take Your Daughters & Sons to Work Day, at least according to the careful calculations of the Take Our Daughters & Sons to Work Foundation.

This observance began as Take Your Daughter to Work Day, to give girls a chance to see what happens out there in the exciting world of business. Then someone noticed that the boys were quite content at home, playing video games, and not at all concerned about being left out. They were included thereafter.

The double helix

Interestingly, Thursday just happens to also be DNA Day commemorating the 1953 publication of Crick and Watson's famous article, "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" describing the double helix structure of DNA. These two events don't always coincide, inasmuch as TYDSTWD (as it's known in the trade) occurs always on the 4th Thursday of April and that just happens to fall on this year's 60th DNA Day.

So... plan on taking the inheritors of your DNA with you into the workplace Thursday. Forget about stopping off at the gin mill on the way home. Maybe you can get ice cream instead.

Thursday will also be Hug a Plumber Day. You don't have to unless you want to.

April 24 used to be Secretary's Day

Vintage secretary photo obtained from this
site (and there were a number of others
there, equally as good)

The nice lady pictured at left might have liked the idea of Secretary's Day, back in the day. The boss might have given her a card, or bought her lunch or a gift certificate. She would have been happy, and would have told all her friends that she had a 'nice boss.'

But things are complicated in the 21st Century. No one even wants to be called a secretary anymore, even when one is in fact a secretary. The current term is "administrative professional," although the person who types or files or answers the phone is neither an administrator nor a member of any of the traditional learned professions (e.g., law or medicine).

Fortunately, the problem is self-correcting.

Many learned professionals do their own typing, thank you, and filing, too, at least when given no other choice. The true secretary is a vanishing breed. Those who might have employed a secretary in years past might now employ an assistant -- a gofer -- the person who makes calls, or screens calls, and runs errands (or interference), in addition to any organizing or even typing that may on occasion still be required. Nor is the assistant certain to be female.

Of course, secretaries used to be exclusively male -- but that was in the 19th Century.

By fifty or 60 years ago, secretaries were almost exclusively female. And they took shorthand.

You probably don't know what shorthand is. If you have an assistant, ask him or her to look it up on Wednesday. Then take him or her to lunch.

Forsooth! Shirley Temple turns 85 on Tuesday

Photo by Everett, obtained from Fine Art America.

The Good Ship Lollipop is still afloat. Shirley Temple turns 85 on Tuesday (she was born on April 23, 1928). We wish her well. But this is how we remember her.

Valerie Bertinelli turns 53 on April 23 (born April 23, 1960 in Wilmington, Delaware). Somehow, that makes us feel older than Shirley Temple turning 85.

Roy Orbison was born on April 23, 1936 (he died in 1988).

Wikipedia's April 23 page says that Bill Shakespeare, one of those Dead White Guys they don't like to talk about in English classes anymore, was born on April 23, 1564 and died on April 23, 1616. Wikipedia's biography of Mr. Shakespeare, however, disagrees: Although the article agrees about the date of Shakespeare's death, it says there is no certainty as to when he was actually born, only that he was baptized on April 26, 1564. Regardless, several of the Usual Suspects honor Shakespeare on April 23 with Talk Like Shakespeare Day. Practice your iambic pentameter Tuesday, boys and girls.

On April 23, 1910, at the Sorbonne in Paris, ex-President Theodore Roosevelt gave his famous 'Citizenship in a Republic' speech. This passage, about the Man in the Arena, has become a classic:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

That passage may even have been offered by some well-meaning someone as a sort of comfort to the idiots who foisted "New Coke" on the world. Yes, "New Coke," perhaps the biggest marketing blunder in history, was introduced on April 23, 1985.

Perhaps coincidentally, Usual Suspects Holiday Insights and Checkiday.com say Tuesday will be Take a Chance Day. Whether related or not, the "New Coke" fiasco certainly illustrates the risks involved in taking a chance. We say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Monday is Earth Day

NASA image (obtained here)

There are other planets -- we covered that yesterday, remember? -- but, for now, and for the foreseeable future, this is the only one on which the overwhelming majority of us are ever likely to live.

Monday, April 22 is Earth Day, a day when all of us should rededicate ourselves to not messing up this beautiful blue marble that carries us on our journey through life.

If you're not from around here, we suppose you might prefer to celebrate National Jelly Bean Day instead. But, if you're not from around here, can you even eat jelly beans?

April 21: Kindergarten Day and other, out-of-this-world stuff

The Usual Suspects are in rare accord on this one: Sunday, April 21 will be Kindergarten Day. They even seem to agree why this is so: Friedrich Fröbel, the German educator who created the concept of kindergarten, was born on April 21, 1782.

Horace Rumpole's creator was born on April 21, 1923.

Sir John Mortimer, the author of the many Rumpole of the Bailey books and screenplays was born on April 21, 1923 (he passed away in 2009).

And, as long as we're on the subject of birthdays, the City of Rome turns 2,766 on Sunday. According to tradition, Romulus and Remus established the City of Rome on April 21, 753 B.C.

This may prove to be a big deal in the years to come (at least we hope so): The discovery of the first extrasolar planets was announced on April 21, 1992 (two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. Actually, there were some earlier discoveries that have since been confirmed, but these two were the first discovery to be generally accepted in the scientific community. A third extrasolar planet has since been found in orbit around that pulsar. Not that you'd want to go there, even if you could.

But over 800 extrasolar planets have been identified in the 21 years since... and techniques have improved to the point where scientists are able to detect smaller -- and more potentially habitable -- planets in orbits around distant stars.

Lots of giggling and munchies on 4/20

Yes, Saturday, April 20 will be Weed Day or Pot Smokers Day or just plain 420.

Why, out of all the days of the year, April 20 was awarded this dubious distinction is a bit fuzzy and unclear -- lost, it would seem, in clouds of smoke. Surely this comes as no surprise.

Huffpost keeps a 2009 feature online, "4/20: How 'Weed Day' Got Its Name," that explores the various explanations that have been offered. The relevant Wikipedia entry seems to be pretty much in accord. One can just imagine a bunch of stoners sitting around, passing a joint, and thinking it outrageously funny that, like, if 4:00 is tea time, man, 4:20 should be weed time. The longer Huffpost article mentions, although the Wikipedia article does not, the widely circulated rumor that 4-20 was a police code, at least in California, for pot smoking in progress.

Unless you live in a state that permits medical marijuana use and you have a valid prescription for the herb in that state, we here at The Blog of Days strongly suggest that you not make your celebration of 420 too overt. The Blog of Days does not assist with bail, man.

If you choose not to inhale, Saturday will also be Lima Bean Respect Day and National Pineapple Upside-down Cake Day. We think you should probably choose to celebrate one or the other; we're not sure how these would go together.

Saturday will also be Look Alike Day (find your doppelgänger?), Volunteer Recognition Day, and Record Store Appreciation Day.

Are there still record stores somewhere?

The Shot Heard Round the World

Sobered as we must be by the terrible events in Boston this week, we must nevertheless note that Friday, April 19 is the 238th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Although Paul Revere's ride was not nearly so successful as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made it out to be (Revere was arrested by the British en route) it was successful enough. The Patriot militia were assembled in time to frustrate British hopes of confiscating colonists' arms and provisions. The image of 'the shot heard round the world' comes from the first stanza Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn, written for the 1837 dedication of a monument to the battle at Concord:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

Friday will also be National Hanging Out Day, which is not (as you might think) a day for loafing around but, rather, a day to encourage folks to hang their laundry outdoors to dry. A project of Project Laundry List, National Hanging Out Day reminds us all that the old-fashioned clothesline is now cutting-edge green technology.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, in which he wrote that "all men are created equal," nevertheless sold an indentured servant named John Freeman to another Founding Father, James Madison, on April 19, 1809.

On a lighter note, Friday will also be National Garlic Day. Given the popularity of vampires in popular culture, does anyone want garlic anymore to ward them off?

Thursday is High-5 Day

It's too late to get a t-shirt, but you can still register for National High-5 Day, as silly a microminiholidayette as any, but one with a serious and distinctive purpose, raising money for five cancer centers around the United States.

Usual Suspect Brownielocks.com notes that Thursday will be Poem in Your Pocket Day. The American Academy of Poets encourages you to "[s]elect a poem, carry it with you, and share it with others throughout the day." Although we like this idea, we would recommend against declaiming, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways," while you are riding a crowded bus or subway. Your fellow passengers may misunderstand.

Perhaps the most entertaining microminiholidayette for Thursday, however, is National Velociraptor Day.

The Great San Francisco Earthquake took place on April 18, 1906. Most of the city was destroyed in the quake or the fires that followed. Guatemala's second largest city, Quetzaltenango, was largely destroyed by earthquake on April 18, 1902. But you probably never heard about that one when you were in school, something for which you should be grateful, because Quetzaltenango is nearly impossible to spell.

Cheeseballs, Mustangs, Ellis Island, Hemophilia, and giving into nagging

Wednesday, April 17, will be National Cheeseball Day, a food microminiholidayette of negligible import and one we might have ignored but for Usual Suspect Punchbowl.com's explanation of what a cheeseball is -- or, rather, what cheeseballs are: Cheeseball may properly refer to two different foods. "The first type of cheeseballs are the bright orange, marble-sized snacks that turn your fingers orange (very similar to cheese doodles). The second type is the kind you might serve with crackers at a party." We'd often wondered about this.

We've never heard anyone actually use the term "cheese doodle" in conversation (we suspect it may be a regionalism foreign to the Midwest) but we have been known to get our fingers orange on occasion. Also our clothes -- that stuff doesn't come off easy.

Wednesday will also mark the 49th anniversary of the introduction of the Ford Mustang (the 1964½ Ford Mustang, to be precise). We'll try and get our crack research staff to do something special for next year's 50th anniversary. Anyway, a number of the Usual Suspects refer to Wednesday as Ford Mustang Day in commemoration.

Some of the Usual Suspects also mention that Wednesday will be Ellis Island Family History Day. The day was not chosen randomly. According to Wikipedia, the Ellis Island immigration center processed 11,747 people on April 17, 1907, the single busiest day in the busy history of that facility.

Wednesday is also World Hemophilia Day, sponsored and promoted by the World Federation of Hemophilia.

And almost all of the Usual Suspects call April 17 Blah, Blah, Blah Day. Usual Suspect Holiday Insights explains that this is one of those Wellcat Holidays that pop up now and again, this one devoted to doing "all of the projects and things that people have been nagging you to do. This may include quitting a habit, losing weight, or working on home projects." If that sounds like fun to you, you're welcome to celebrate it. We'll settle for Cheeseball Day instead.

Stress Awareness Day

We have another tax-related microminiholidayette for you on Tuesday, April 16, namely, Stress Awareness Day, established on the theory that you may be just a teensy bit stressed out after you've finished rendering unto Caesar.

Usual Suspect Punchbowl.com suggests that Tuesday will be National Wear Your Pajamas To Work Day, although that sounded to us at first a little like someone trying to talk someone into something. On the other hand, Usual Suspect Gone-ta-pott.com suggests that this microminiholidayette "was created to help relieve stress after income taxes are due." So there is a possible connection between Stress Awareness Day and Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day. And there is a National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day website. However, if you do decide to wear your PJ's to work Tuesday, The Blog of Days will not be responsible for any job-related consequences.

The American Library Association would like you to remember that we are in the midst of American Library Week. Depending on who you talk to, Tuesday may even be American Library Day, but we could not confirm that on the ALA website.

And there's another baseball anniversary Tuesday, and not a happy one for those of us who live and die with the Chicago White Sox: On April 16, 1940, Future Hall of Famer Bob Feller pitched an Opening Day no hitter against the Pale Hose, the only Opening Day no-no ever. Feller's Cleveland Indians did not give him a whole heck of a lot of run support either: The final was 1 - 0.

Tuesday will also be National Eggs Benedict Day, and that's nice if you like that sort of thing.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927 in Marktl, Germany) turns 86 on April 16.

The Blog of Days knows of no possible connection between these last two items.

Actually, some people do celebrate Tax Day

Some of the Usual Suspects advise that Monday is That Sucks Day because Lincoln died on April 15, 1865 and the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912 (we warned you about this in yesterday's post) and because Monday will be Tax Day.

Yes, Monday will be Tax Day and, while we understand that you may be less than thrilled about it, especially if you're sending Uncle Sam a check, there are some people who will be positively giddy on Monday evening. You will see them converging on neighborhood watering holes and restaurants. Later you may see them swaying and swerving home. These people are accountants and they will be celebrating that still another tax season has finally come to an end.

Photo of Jackie Robinson obtained from his biography.com site.

For those of you who aren't accountants, Monday will be Patriot's Day (or Patriots' Day, depending on where you are in New England). Either way, the day will feature the running of the Boston Marathon. The Boston Red Sox will be at home, too, playing a very early game (first pitch 11:05 am) at Fenway against the Tampa Bay Rays.

And, speaking of baseball, Monday is the anniversary of the day Future Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson finally broke Major League Baseball's "Color Line." On April 15, 1947 Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers. And in Robinson's honor, all the players on the Red Sox and the Rays -- and indeed on every Major League team -- will wear Robinson's number, 42, on their own uniforms on Monday.

Monday is a big day in North Korea, too: It is the birthday of Kim Il-sung, North Korea's "Eternal President," and the grandfather of Kim Jong-un, the current head honcho over there who may or may not start a war on Monday in commemoration of his grandfather's memory.

Monday is also called McDonald's Day or Fast Food Day because Ray Kroc opened his first franchised McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois on April 15, 1955. Within a decade he'd squeezed the original McDonald brothers out of business.

April 14: Downer Day

Illustration obtained from this source.

Actually, none of the Usual Suspects proclaim April 14 to be Downer Day; this was just a conclusion we reached on our own sifting through the alternatives.

To wit: The RMS Titanic struck that fatal iceberg on April 14, 1912. (It would sink on April 15.)

President Abraham Lincoln went to Ford's Theater on the evening of April 14, 1865. You may recall what happened there. (Lincoln would die on April 15.)

Speaking of former residents of Springfield, Illinois, the Donner Party left Springfield, bound for California, on April 14, 1846. You may remember... that trip didn't go so well.

But, hey, a number of the Usual Suspects do say that April 14 is Ex-Spouse Day. Does that cheer you up, bub?

Sunday will also be A Global Day to End Child Sexual Abuse. Really ending child abuse would make us happy; that we are forced to confront the scourge of child abuse as a serious and ongoing problem that needs to be addressed surely does not.

Some of the Usual Suspects also proclaim April 14 as International Moment of Laughter Day. Although, seriously, from this list, what's to laugh about? Thus, we herewith invent Downer Day. Gets you right in the mood for Tax Day, doesn't it?

April 13 is Scrabble Day but...

Almost everything on Saturday has to do with birthdays, really.

Scrabble was invented in 1938 by American architect Alfred Mosher Butts and most of the Usual Suspects agree that April 13 will be Scrabble Day.

But why celebrate Scrabble on April 13? Usual Suspect Holiday Insights candidly acknowledges that it could not figure that out.

For once, however, our crack research staff came through: Alfred Mosher Butts was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on April 13, 1899. (Of course, all the research staff did was look up Butts' bio in Wikipedia.)

And the Usual Suspects also offer Thomas Jefferson Day as an alternative celebration for April 13. Why?

Well, here again, Mr. Jefferson was born April 13, 1743. Let's see... Saturday would be his 270th birthday.

Butch Cassidy, as in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, was born on April 13, 1866 and -- would you believe it? -- the late Don Adams was born 90 years ago, on April 13, 1923.

If you insist on non-birthday related observances... well, Constantinople did fall before 1453 -- on April 13, 1204, to be exact, before the rampaging soldiers of the Fourth Crusade.

King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes on April 13, 1598, an event that would be a bigger milestone in the history of religious toleration but for the fact that it would be repealed by Henry's grandson, Louis XIV, in 1685.

The explosion that darn near killed the crew of Apollo XIII took place on April 13, 1970. It was very scary to watch at the time; we can barely imagine what it must have been like to live through -- even after repeated viewing of the Ron Howard movie.

Samuel Argall kidnapped Native American princess Pocahontas in Passapatanzy, Virginia on April 13, 1613, exactly 400 years ago. Disney left out a lot of stuff.

Grilled Cheese and Cosmonauts for April 12

Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human being to enter outer space, on April 12, 1961, completing an orbit of the Earth in a 108 minute flight aboard Vostok 1. Thus, Friday April 12 will be Russian Cosmonaut Day. (Usual Suspect Brownielocks.com calls it International Day of Human Space Flight, but it's the same thing.)

Inasmuch as we're still begging rides to and from the International Space Station from the Russians, we'd better make it a point to celebrate this one, don't you think?

But Friday will also be Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, in honor of the least fancy entree in the history of eating.

And the fastest surface wind velocity ever recorded on Planet Earth was recorded on April 12, 1934 on Mount Washington, New Hampshire: The breeze was clocked at an astounding 231 miles per hour. (Hold onto your hat... and your head!) Some of the Usual Suspects proclaim Friday Big Wind Day in commemoration of that far-from-gentle zephyr.

There are a couple of literary birthdays to celebrate on Friday, too: Tom Clancy (born in Maryland April 12, 1947) turns 66, while Chicago lawyer and author Scott Turow turns 64 (born in Chicago on April 12, 1949).

Old stuff and a partroness of pharmacists and students for April 11

According to several of the Usual Suspects, Thursday, April 11 will be Eight Track Tape Day.

There will be a brief pause while younger readers speculate whether the object at left might be an eight track tape in an eight track tape player.

If that was your guess, you are correct (the image coming from a website depicting "modern antiques" that will be unfamiliar to anyone born after the Baby Boom).

Eight track tapes were similar, but inferior to, and larger than, later cassette tapes. Many had an annoying tendency to switch direction in the middle of a song -- an interruption that was jarring enough when the tape was new and taut, but positively annoying after repeated use. As annoying as this was, however, it was still not quite as bad as the tendency of these tapes to eventually 'bleed' tracks together -- so that one would hear a song being played as recorded in the aural foreground, but a different song, playing backwards, in the background.

Eight track tapes were big in the mid-60s and early 70s and, mercifully, gone by the 1980s. Eight tracks, like 45s, were formats which were popular among young people -- so there probably weren't many barbershop quartets who released albums on eight tracks at any time.

Nevertheless, Thursday will be Barbershop Quartet Day. Back in the 60s, when we were listening to eight track tapes, we'd roll our eyes and hold our noses at the prospect of listening to a barbershop quartet. Today, though, with the passage of time, the innocent sounds of the barbershop quartet are a soothing balm and a reminder of a more innocent and joyous time. Rent or download a copy of the classic musical The Music Man Thursday night to enjoy the bickering school board that Robert Preston magically turns into a barbershop quartet.

Usual Suspect Saints.spqn.com has a number of saints on any given day of the week, but Saint Gemma Galgani caught our attention for Thursday, her feast. (Gemma died on April 11, 1903 at the age of 25.) The daughter of pharmacist, Gemma wanted to enter religious life, but was rejected because of concerns about her health: She had contracted spinal meningitis, and recovered, but convents were skeptical of her claim that she had received a miraculous cure. Several members of her family died from tuberculosis, as did she, but not before becoming a Stigmatist, receiving the wounds of Jesus on the Cross between Thursday evening and Friday afternoon every week for over two years. Her claimed visions would prove controversial, during her life and after, when her spiritual director, Venerable Rev. Germanus Ruoppolo CP, pressed her claim for canonization. Wikipedia says that Gemma is a patron saint of pharmacists and students (she was reportedly an excellent student before she was forced to leave school).

Today's college kids won't know about barbershop quartets or even eight track tapes -- but they will know about upcoming final exams. A prayer to St. Gemma might prove helpful. Pass it on.

Finally, on April 11, 1814, Napoleon was exiled to Elba. This would be a bigger deal but for his escape and temporary return to power in 1815.