Columbus Day - Today?

 

I must admit, I didn´t even realize that it was Columbus Day. Pretty sad. Looking back, the formal recognition of Columbus Day is relatively recent. New York City threw the first recorded Columbus party in 1792, but it took New Yorkers 74 years for another big celebration. Then, Colorado scooted in to become the first state to have a Columbus Day (1905). President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided the Depression could use a new holiday, and made Oct. 12 a federal one in 1937. Under President Richard M. Nixon, Columbus Day got moved to the second Monday in October.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 22 states don´t observe the holiday. Why the disparity? Well, among other reasons, a strong contingent feels that the Genoese navigator´s sailing the ocean blue in 1492 introduced a dark period of colonization. Protesters and academics have argued for years that the existing American population, plus earlier evidence of Viking houseguests, make the notion of "discovery" misleading.

Some states have long just "observed" the holiday, but leave local government offices open. Others use the date to revere the native population who existed long before the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria sailed in. According to a Wikipedia round-up, South Dakota declares October 12 as Indigenous People´s Day. Hawaii celebrates the more general Discoverers´ Day, which actually refers to the Aloha State´s Polynesian founders (although the bureaucrats firmly emphasize "this day is not and shall not be construed to be a state holiday").

Tennessee, though, wins for creative calendaring: The Wall Street Journal points out that the state bumped Columbus Day to after Thanksgiving to create a four-day weekend. Indeed, the explorer´s day leads in "holiday swapping"—work on that October date, get another day off later in the holiday season.

I guess we´re all expected to "discover" our own way on this day...