4/3/2007 11:10:00 AM Take your pick of which holiday to celebrate in April Biker's Diary
By Dr. Jan Meyer
The main calendar in our house is on the refrigerator in the kitchen. On it, we keep track of everything that is important. But it is good for something else: it is one of those old-fashioned kinds that lists a lot of little-known and/or ignored holidays. The first Friday in April is one of those: it is Army Day.
This is the first time in many years that we have had a calendar that had all of these good things on it and I can't remember ever hearing about an Army Day before. So of course I had to go look it up. In the process, I found out a lot of other things.
It seems April has a lot of holidays, the number depending upon which Web site you believe. One, thinkquest.com, lists more than 35 different holidays but doesn't include Army Day. Or April Fool's Day, for that matter. Or Earth Day (April 22). Or National Secretary's Day (now called Administrative Professionals Day and Week) which is the week of April 22 to 28; the "day" is April 25 and 26.
Thinkquest's list is long and interesting. Instead of April Fool's Day on April 1, this day is listed as One Cent Day. That doesn't make much "cents" to me, but then many of the others don't either. For example, there is the Don't Go to Work Unless It's Fun Day (April 3), the Name Yourself Day (April 9), and the Look Alike Day. April 6 is Sorry Charlie Day, which honors anyone who has ever been jilted.
Others may be on the list as a kind of advertising - getting more people to use a particular product. For example, April 2 is National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, April 14 is National Pecan Day, April 17 is National Cheeseball Day, April 19 is National Garlic Day and April 24 is National Pigs in a Blanket Day.
Some may have an educational intention behind them, such as April 9 being Winston Churchill Day. April 16 is National Stress Awareness Day, April 23 is Read Me Day and April 28 is Great Poetry Reading Day.
At the holidayinsights Web site, I found a list of 74 holidays for April. Many were the same as the previous lists I had checked. In addition, it included more serious ones such as April 20 as Children's Book Day, April 4 as School Library Day and April 16 as National Librarian Day. April 6 is National Walk to Work Day and April 7 is World Health Day. April 20 is Volunteer Recognition Day and April 22 is Girl Scout Leader Day. I also found that Thomas Jefferson's birthday is April 18 and Arbor Day is April 27.
If having something different to celebrate every day isn't enough, you can celebrate the whole month: April is Holocaust Month, National Poetry Month, Jazz Appreciation Month, and Be Vigilant Against Child Abuse Month.
None of the lists revealed what their sources were for the more bizarre holidays; maybe they made some of them up and then just quoted each other. But another site, snopes.com, adds a little more background to some of the holidays. For example, April Fool's Day has likely been celebrated for a long time: the most-believed of the stories about its origin is that in the 1500s when the calendar was changed from the old Gregorian calendar to the newer Julian calendar, some forgot to make the change and attempted to celebrate New Year's on the old date of April 1. Those people were called April fools. Just exactly when people started playing pranks on that day is unknown, but it likely began when people tried to trick others into celebrating New Year's on that day. That was followed by doing things like sending a child to the store for elbow grease; when I was growing up it was being sent for a sky hook.
There are some jokes associated with April 1, such as "Why are people so tired on April 1? Because they just finished a 31-day March!"
And, Mark Twain is quoted as saying, "The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year!"
In all of my searching, I did finally find out about Army Day. First celebrated as Defense Test Day in 1924 and 1925, it evolved into Army Day which was first celebrated on May 1, 1928, and changed to April 6 in 1929; that was the anniversary date of the U.S. entry into World War I. President Roosevelt issued a proclamation in 1936 that Army Day be recognized by Congress as April 6 and observed nationwide. Congress passed that resolution in 1937; however, while it is still officially a holiday, it has not been celebrated nationally since April 6, 1949.
It's amazing what one can learn simply by turning the page of the calendar. Now I am looking forward to what May has in store for holidays.
