Front Porch: There’s always a reason to celebrate

Let’s have a high-five for today.

No really, it’s pretty close to mandatory to be high-fiving this day. It is National High Five Day after all. Celebrated on the third Thursday of April every year, National High Five Day is just one of any number of other kinds of obscure days of celebration sprinkled liberally around the calendar. Not sure why, but there they are.

These days aren’t exactly official. They haven’t been voted on by Congress or proclaimed by decree. No days off are given. No parades. But there are odd little calendars out there that list any variety of “national” days to celebrate … well, everything from the Aug. 21 observation of National Spumoni Day (yum!) to National Bunsen Burner Day (March 31). Sometimes there are stories behind these days, how they were established and celebrated, but often they just exist for reasons no one seems to know.

National High Five Day honors the slapping of hands raised high in the air, usually to rejoice in a sports victory or sometimes just a shared pleasure. It came into being – according to its website – in 2002 when college students at the University of Virginia commemorated the day’s establishment with, what else, a profusion of high fives.

I am just drawn to this kind of trivia for reasons I can’t explain. And I am compelled to share.

Note, too, that Kindergarten Day is observed today in honor of Friedrich Froebel, who was born in Germany on April 21, 1782. He started the very first kindergarten in 1837, a half-day experience designed to help young children get used to the formal learning environment in a fun and age-appropriate way.

We just missed National Garlic Day, which was Wednesday, when we were supposed to use lots of garlic in our meals and snacks. In addition to all the medicinal advantages of garlic (lowering cholesterol, for example), it keeps us free of vampires, which is always a good thing.

And we can look forward to National Jelly Bean Day on Friday. I mean, what’s not to like about that? Apparently, jelly beans can be traced back to at least the Civil War era, when advertising urged sending the chewy little confection to Union troops in the war. It has been speculated that if ever a president were to declare this an official day of recognition, it would have been Ronald Reagan, whose love for jelly beans was widely known.

It’s hard to explain the reason for or the calendar placement of some of these days of observation, but some make perfect sense. For example, Dec. 18 is Bake Cookies Day and Dec. 21 is Humbug Day for venting frustration over holiday stress. Fruitcake Toss Day is Jan. 3. I get it. And one of my favorites – Sidewalk Egg Frying Day is July 4. It’s not like that could happen any time other than a sticky, hot summer day.

And then there’s All Our Uncles are Monkeys Day, Nov. 24. It was on this day in 1859 that Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was published. Also on this day in 1974 the 3.2 million-year-old skeleton of Lucy, determined to be one of humankind’s earliest ancestors, was discovered in Ethiopia. Some people refer to Nov. 24 by its more formal, but much less entertaining, name, Evolution Day.

Also puzzling (but maybe not) was why Toothache Day is set for Feb. 9. There is speculation that it’s because that was the day the Hershey Co. was founded, but a contributor to the website suggested it might have been to celebrate the feast day of St. Apollonia, the patroness of dentists.

Some days that seem stupid actually aren’t. Ask a Stupid Question Day is Sept. 28. Apparently this observation goes back to the 1980s when there was a movement among some teachers to try to get students to ask more questions in the classroom, especially students who held back because they were worried their questions would be considered stupid and bring forth laughter from classmates.

Some of these celebrations are actually a week long, and there are monthlong observations, too – National Sarcastic Month (October), Fight the Filthy Fly Month (June) and National Chicken Month (September). And some, of course, take on serious subjects such as diabetes awareness, sexual assault awareness, heart health and more.

But mostly they’re just for fun, and who can’t love that?

Take for example International Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, so significant to its founder that it had to be bumped up from a national day to an international one, at least unofficially. Awash in the midwinter doldrums during the 1960s, a mom in Rochester, New York, decided to give her kids something to look forward to, other than gloomy weather, so she picked the first Saturday in February for her two young sons to enjoy ice cream for breakfast.

Now if we could combine that somehow with National Spumoni Day, I’m all in.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@ comcast.net. Previous columns are available at spokesman.com/ columnists.