Weekend Assignment #28: Build Your Own Holiday

Weekend Assignment #28: Build Your Own Holiday

In honor of Columbus Day next week, here's your mission this week:

Weekend Assignment #28: The United States Congress (or appropriate legislative body in the country in which you live) has vested in you the power create exactly one National Holiday, celebrating anyone or anything you want, no questions asked. What is the name of your holiday, what does it celebrate, and how should we celebrate it?

One Rule: It can't be a holiday that honors someone who already has a holiday. Share the wealth, people.

Extra credit: Name the holiday that already exists that you'd like to see have a higher profile.

Dear John,

Autumn is in full swing here in the North Country. Traditionally the Columbus Day holiday weekend is the peak of the foliage viewing in these parts. It also spells the end to 90% of the pure tourism (tourists here to recreate, as opposed to those pursuing an avocation such as gold, fishing, hunting, etc.).

Not to let us down, Mother Nature is cooperating across the state with an average of half the leaves at peak color. I heard a rumor at the truck stop yesterday that “down south” in southern Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and in most of Massachusetts, most of the color will be another week or more before peak levels are reached.

I'm glad to hear you had the opportunity amidst all of your fussing with Moveable Type and redoing Whatever, ranting and raving about politics and this and that, (in other words, avoiding working on the book) to go to your community's Pumpkin Festival. That reminds me of a minor mystery hereabouts.

It seems that Mrs. Dog had observed and noted two pumpkins sitting on the pink outhouse the wind blew over in the field a couple of years ago. Said outhouse was the byproduct of a failed paintball venture that a local club attempted. They gave it up for a loss after discovering that playing outdoors in the sun and rain amidst trees and rocks, well, hurt! A lot! But, I digress...

Now, yours truly is outside on a daily basis, taking the air and supervising Willow zee Wunderhund in her copraphagic activities. The presence of such an anomaly as not one, but two pumpkins sitting on this overturned outhouse would surely have attracted my attention. I am convinced that had I seen said pumpkins I would have investigated immediately, Wunderhund at my side for protection from voles and kittens that might accost me enroute.

Suffice it to say, no such investigation took place. Yours truly never noted the presence of said orotund seed-bearers atop the pink edifice of leisure. And no, no devils brew nor any THC-bearing vegetation has passed my lips in many, many, many moons, kemosabe. I have been as sober as a deacon for more years than Mary-Kate and Ashley have been the Olsen Twins.

What, you may ask, is the point of all of this drivel? Simply that a mystery exists. And it serves as the lead into the holiday I adopt from Charley Brown of Peanuts fame: Great Pumpkin Day. I propose we celebrate Great Pumpkin Day in place of the politically incorrect Columbus Day. It can remain a three-day holiday weekend. It removes all incentive for the Italian-American Anti-defamation League to protest the protests of the Native Americans formerly known as ‘Injuns’ with sticks and guns. It offers an economic incentive to all bakers around the country to create appropriate treats for the holiday: cream of pumpkin soup, Pumpkin Dream (a to-die-for concoction of pumpkin custard, whipped cream, strawberries and filo dough), old standbys like pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread. Well, the possibilities are endless!

Can't you see yourself at the head of the table on Great Pumpkin Day, carving a monster 23 pound roasted, stuffed pumpkin for the gathered family and guests at your feast? After the requisite half hour spent comatose in the Lazy-boy with your pants unbuttoned and zipper at half-mast in salute to your gluttony, all would rally with flashlights and warm clothing to partake of the nights celebrations. First, the five acre Corn Field Maze you and yours have created with the farmer next door, which she will continue to operate for the city clickers to come play in over the next few weeks at $5 a head, (children under 12 half price, under 2 get in for free) which pays her enough to farm another year. After recovering all straggling children (or not -- your option), it's off to the community's annual Pumpkin Festival and Parade. Gee, you might even win a prize for a Snoopy Pumkin Float made out of all those AOL CD’s you’ve received in lieu of a pay raise since the Time-Warner merger!

Well, as you can imagine, I could go on and on ad nauseum about Great Pumpkin Day and all of the thrilling activities for you and the family. If truth be told, I’m rather partial to the pole dancing event that’s part of the “Miss Nude Pumpkin Contest,” myself.

That’s all for this week. Give Krissy something besides deep-fried Oreos to remember you by and rope in Athena before she gets too smart for the two of you.

Grins and giggles and another smidgen of pumpkin pie, please.

wil

P.S. I really think that more attention needs to be paid to Breast Cancer Awareness. It’s a cowardly, insidious disease that strikes women most often, but I have news for you, guys. You are not immune from it, either. More and more men are being treated for the disease as America grows adipose tissue faster than the economy. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Learn the facts, gents. The life you save may be your own.

Don't forget to post a link to your entry over at John Scalzi's By The Way -- this is his meme, afterall...