So I moved my computer out onto the front porch, which is enclosed, in preparation for all the kids I expected to come around begging candy. I decided against costuming myself, though I briefly considered wearing a dress or my kilt. But I can’t imitate a Scottish brogue worth a darn, and wearing a dress I reasoned, might upset some parents accompanying the wee bairns. So I demurred, and am sitting at my desk, wearing “man clothes,” waiting.

It is pressing on toward seven PM, and is fully dark outside. One would expect at least a few children would have arrived by now. I am beginning to suspect that like many special days in the United States, this one has been moved to fall on the weekend.

I suppose the kid’s teachers will be just as glad not to have children in their classes tomorrow trying to sneak candy into class, and gorging themselves on sugary confections during lunch. It is much easier to keep one’s thumb firmly affixed atop their pointy little heads if they are not on a sugar-induced energy high.

But it seems to me there is something that detracts from the specialness of days, when they are all arbitrarily moved to coincide with weekends. When I was a child, Halloween was always on October 31, regardless of the day of the week. Memorial Day was always May 30, Armistice Day, now called “Veteran’s Day” was always November 11.

On Armistice Day, at eleven o’clock, we used to all troop out onto the school grounds while the flag was lowered, then raised and dropped to half-staff in honor of the people killed during “the war to end all wars.” The old school bell was struck eleven times, to signify that on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at eleven PM, the guns across all of Europe fell silent. We then sang (a capella, mind you, and mostly off key) “My Country Tis of Thee; Sweet land of liberty; Of thee I sing.” It was a solemn time, and we children were (mostly, except for the usual miscreants) moved to consider the grave sacrifices made to keep this land free. Of course, we didn’t know then what we learned as we grew older; that the war became an excuse to divide the Middle East among the victors for oil rights, and that France, England and the other “Allies” would insist upon such stringent reparations that another major conflict was almost guaranteed.

But that is not what this is about. This musing is about changing holidays and days of remembrance for our hedonistic desire for a three day weekend, and how that seems indicative of a greater degradation in American society.

We no longer celebrate George Washington’s birthday, nor do we celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s; instead, we have “President’s Day.” The implication is that all U.S. Presidents, past and present, are equally great. History belies this concept. It is clear that some presidents were far better than others. Some presidents were far better at dealing with foreign relations than at solving domestic problems. Some were great designers of social construct; and some were forward thinking and innovative in their approach to infrastructure. Some of them were people who took projects envisioned or begun by their predecessors and carried them to fruition. Eisenhower and Johnson were two whom I can recall offhand, who did that. Others were people who undid things done by their predecessors, or during their predecessor’s terms of office. The current movements against social support systems are examples of undoing much of what Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson did. It is likely that, in the near future, we will see even more erosion of social and educational systems.

Clearly, those accomplishments, while arguably great, cannot compare with the likes of Washington, who single-handedly created the precedent of refusing a third term; or of Lincoln, who managed to both hold the country together against major odds threatening to tear it apart, and ended (at least in the Federally approved sense) slavery. Oh, I know his proclamation applied only to “those states in rebellion”, and I know that it was questionably constitutional or enforceable, but, like John Belushi’s character in Animal House, I’m on a roll here – don’t interrupt me with details.

My point is, by changing the name of the day, we have detracted from the recognition due the inarguably great. I find it interesting that being all-inclusive never raises the lessor individuals to the level of the greatest; it always reduces the greatest to the level of the least capable. I suppose that is part of the human condition; we tend to reduce things to the lowest common denominator.

By moving special days, we have reduced them to the lowest common denominator.

One can but hope that Independence Day is not moved as well, lest we forget how and more importantly why, this nation came to be.

So, in keeping with tradition – Tevye would have us believe there is something to be said for tradition – I wish all a safe and happy Halloween.

“From goblins and ghoulies, long legged beasties, and things that go “bump” in the night – Good Lord deliver us!”