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July 11 is Cheer Up the Lonely Day

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cheer up the lonely day

So close. Find the correct quote below, courtesy of quoteinvestigator.com.

Today is Cheer Up the Lonely Day, created by Francis Pesek of Detroit, Michigan. His daughter L.J. Pesek described him as “a quiet, kind, wonderful man who had a heart of gold.”

“He got the idea as a way of promoting kindness toward others who were lonely or forgotten as shut-ins or in nursing homes with no relatives or friends to look in on them.” She said he chose July 11 because it was his birthday.

What is the definition of the word lonely?
ˈlōnlē/ adjective
  1. sad because one has no friends or company.
    “lonely old people whose families do not care for them”
    • without companions; solitary.
      “passing long lonely hours looking onto the street”
    • (of a place) unfrequented and remote.
      “a lonely stretch of country lane”

The elderly can become isolated as their circles of friends grow smaller due to the illness and death of their contemporaries. They may be relocated to facilities at the fringes of their communities. Loss of physical mobility makes it a struggle to visit others; losing autonomy after lives spent caring for themselves and others takes a psychological toll that can result in depression.

Mark Twain once wrote, “The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.” There’s no denying that time spent face-to-face with loved ones, telling them how much they mean to us, does our hearts good. We also know what it’s like to be lonely. It can happen in the middle of a crowd. It only takes a moment to be kind to a stranger today.

Have a happy Cheer Up the Lonely Day and remember how good it feels. That way, we can keep it going tomorrow and every day after that.

June 28 is Monday Holiday Law Day

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monday holiday law dayToday is Monday Holiday Law Day. Call it the mother of all holidays about holidays, and Lyndon B. Johnson the father of the long weekend.

On June 28, 1968, President Johnson signed a bill moving the official celebration of Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day from their traditional dates to Mondays. The change was meant to give employees the opportunity to travel and spend more leisure time with their families, while making the workweek more efficient by removing the interruption of mid-week holidays.

Johnson also established a holiday to recognize Christopher Columbus and his voyage to the New World. According to the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, “By commemorating Christopher Columbus’s remarkable voyage, the nation honored the courage and determination of generation after generation of immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity in America.”

The law did not merge Lincoln and Washington’s birthdays into a generic Presidents’ Day. This myth, perpetuated by sales hawking everything from automobiles to mattresses, may have its roots in an early draft that recommended it. Congress rejected it on the grounds that a holiday for all presidents would diminish George Washington’s historical significance. His birthday, February 22, 1732, is now officially celebrated on the third Monday in February.

Memorial Day began for the purpose of tending to the neglected graves of Union soldiers in Confederate cemeteries. (A similar tradition in the North was called Decoration Day.) Eventually, the two merged, and May 30 was chosen by a group of veterans because, according to an address by President Barack Obama, “it coincided with the time when flowers were in bloom.”

The holiday wasn’t officially named Memorial Day until 1967. The following year, President Johnson moved its observance to the last Monday in May. Some veterans have complained that moving the date to create a long weekend cheapens its meaning.

Columbus Day was scheduled for the second Monday in October. Some states had already enacted their own commemorative holidays occurring on October 12, the anniversary of Columbus’ landing in 1492; they were required to jettison them and conform to federal law.

Veterans Day, called Armistice Day until 1954, was observed on November 11 to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, when Germany agreed to an armistice with the Allies, effectively ending World War I. President Johnson changed it to the fourth Monday in October. In 1975, Congress voted to revert to November 11 in recognition of the importance of the date. The law went into effect in 1978.

(The spelling of Veterans Day is no mistake: While the holiday is commonly printed as Veteran’s Day or Veterans’ Day, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs website states, “Veterans Day does not include an apostrophe but does include an ‘s’ at the end of ‘veterans’ because it is not a day that ‘belongs’ to veterans, it is a day for honoring all veterans.)

Happy Monday Holiday Law Day!

National Onion Ring Day

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national onion ring dayToday is National Onion Ring Day.

The first known iteration of the onion ring appeared in the 1802 cookbook “The Art of Cookery.” The recipe for Fried Onions with Parmesan Cheese called for onions to be sliced into 1/2 inch rings, dredged in a batter of flour, cream, salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese, then deep-fried in boiling lard.

For recipes and more information about onions than you might ever want to know, read the National Onion Association’s blog, written by the mononymous “Onionista.” There you will find a post describing how to cut onions in a way that will elicit fewer tears.

Have a happy, dry-eyed National Onion Ring Day!

American Eagle Day

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Today is American Eagle Day. On June 20, 1american eagle day782, the American eagle, also known as the bald eagle, was chosen to grace the Great Seal of the United States of America.

Two centuries later, President Ronald Reagan declared June 20, 1982, National Bald Eagle Day and designated 1982 as the Bicentennial Year of the American Bald Eagle. But the observance was a one-time occurrence.

On June 20, 1995, President Bill Clinton and Tennessee Governor Don Sundquist each proclaimed the first official American Eagle Day. Since then, governors from 47 states have followed suit, according to the American Eagle Foundation, an organization working to make American Eagle Day a national holiday.

When the Founding Fathers adopted the bald eagle as our national symbol, there were approximately 25,000 to 75,000 of them in the lower 48 states, according to the Smithsonian. In 1963, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) reported that there were only 487 breeding pairs left, due to hunting, habitat destruction, lead poisoning, and the catastrophic effects of DDT, a common pesticide.

american eagle day

DDT wasn’t lethal to adult eagles, but it accumulated rapidly in their tissues because their diet consisted of prey that was also contaminated with the pesticide, a process known as biomagnification.

High levels of DDT interfered with calcium absorption, rendering the birds sterile or unable to lay healthy eggs. Shells became so thin that they cracked under the weight of a brooding adult.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) restricted the use of DDT in 1972; six years later, the bald eagle was added to the Endangered Species List. Slowly, the population increased; the species’ status was downgraded to “threatened” in 1995. In 2006, USFWS reported 9,789 mating pairs in the lower 48 states and delisted the bald eagle the following year.

If you haven’t seen one up close, check out this list of 13 National Wildlife Refuges that are great places to spot bald eagles. If you have a lot of patience and bandwidth, watch a live nest cam.  Most of the time, nothing much happens, but every once in a while, you’ll get a glimpse of something interesting. It’s a little like the 24/7 stream of Big Brother but without the tears and subterfuge.

Happy American Eagle Day!