Goodbye Columbus

 

    I love October.  The air is redolent with the sweet aroma of burning leaves, high school gridirons thunder with the sound of fiercely-waged contests to push that pigskin across the goal line, Christmas lights-incredibly-start going up, and early-morning frosts warn of the coming winter.

"Winter is coming."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it.

    October also gives us a chance to celebrate the exploits of an intrepid band of explorers who set sail from Barcelona in search of a western route to the fabulous wealth of the East (yeah, going west to get east doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, either).

NOTE:  Please excuse the run-on sentence.

"I'm only gonna say thissa onea more time...if you people don't sitta the effa down, Imma gonna turn thisa thing around and heada backa to Spain!"

    In other words, the tenth month gives us a chance to bemoan the rape and pillage of a pristine wilderness by evil, white, European males who wouldn’t know a bar of soap if it smacked them in the heads.

"Hey, no offense, Esteban, but you kinda smell like ass."

    So, in recognition of their accomplishments, mailmen get the day off and shopping malls trot out their very best Columbus Day displays of bed linen (“Just imagine how comfy the Santa Maria would have been if Chris and the boys had these sheets!!”).

    As a holiday, though, Columbus Day really doesn’t rank up there with the Big Four of Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years, and Boxing Day.  It doesn’t draw in the romantics like Valentines Day, the patriots like the 4th of July, or even the corned beef and Guinness crowd like St. Patrick’s Day.

As festive as that is

    More times than not, we hardly know it’s happened until the evening news greets us with, “Happy Columbus Day!  Too bad you hadda go to work!  Ha, ha, ha!”

    My family has for many years celebrated each holiday, no matter how innocuous.  For example, on Presidents’ Day, we used to dress up as our favorite Commanders in Chief.  Then my brother had to go and spoil it with his Bill Clinton costume.  Meathead got arrested for standing in front of a sorority with his pants down.

"Good times."

    But, for some reason, we never did much to celebrate Columbus Day.  With that in mind, may I offer some suggestions:

10.  Slash the tires of those obnoxious, know-it-all “Vikings were here first!” punks at the Leif Eiriksson Community Center.

9.   Try to convince anyone that parrots, monkeys, and coconuts are just as valuable as jewels, gold, and silk.

8.   Go to the local tribal casino, extend a heartfelt apology, drop a bundle at the craps table.

7.   Put on a wrinkled raincoat, chew on a cigar, try to figure out who put the poison in Miss Van Dyver’s highball...oh, I’m sorry, that’s how to celebrate COLUMBO Day.

6.   Grab some library books, cross out all references to ‘America’ and replace them with ‘Chrisville.’  Draw moustaches on pictures of Amerigo Vespucci.

5.   Bring Christianity to your neighbors at the point of a gun before selling them into slavery, claim your street for your family, pass out blankets riddled with smallpox to the homeless, and shake down passers-by, insisting they tell you where their gold is.

4.   Go to a Chinese restaurant dressed as Columbus, walk in, and shout, “So, HERE’s where you people were all hiding!”

3.   Forward a petition to the city council demanding equal time with Labor Day.

2.   Build a scaled-down replica of Columbus’s fleet, drift aimlessly on the town pond, claim YWCA summer camp for Spain.

1.   Dressed as Columbus, visit a deforested national park (or strip mine), issue “Ooops, my bad!” statement to the press.

    There now, I hope this list inspires you to do something other than complain when you can’t use the drive-up window at the bank. 

    But, if it’ll make you feel better, go get yourself a cannoli.

    Chris would’ve wanted it that way.

 ********

  To my good friends north of the border:

"How about, after we eat, we play a little football?"
"Canadian football?"
"Yeah."
"Naw, that sucks, eh?  Eat your poutine."

  Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!  May your harvest tables be blessed with bountiful feasts and happily free of moose and Celine Dion lookalikes.

  As Martin Frobisher would have said, “Sure, it makes more sense than eating outside in Massachusetts in November, but don’t you think we could’ve thrown in a four-day weekend like the United States?”