Andy Young: Time for a rebranding?

By Andy Young

I’m a little out of sorts because this weekend is an hour shorter than usual. Daylight Saving Time begins this Sunday morning when the clocks “spring forward” one hour. That reminds me: is any month associated with more tired adages, vapid platitudes, and outright inaccuracies than March?

A crazy person is labeled “Madder than a March hare,” but the reality is hare behavior in the spring is attributable to the animal’s mating ritual and has nothing to do with anger or insanity.

“Beware the Ides of March,” a cautionary phrase immortalized by William Shakespeare, is nothing more than silly superstition. There’s no inherent danger in any particular calendar date. That established, if a group of toga-wearing Roman senators comes at me on the 15th, I’ll probably turn tail and start sprinting.

And even though The Old Farmer’s Almanac annually forecasts that the third month’s weather will “Come in like a lion, and go out like a lamb,” that doesn’t always turn out to be the case.

March has much to recommend it. It contains more letters than its two one-syllable sisters, May and June. It’s the only month that can legitimately call itself a true verb; sorry May, but auxiliary ones don’t count. It’s also the only month that can be used as a non-proper noun. Archaic nouns don’t count, so get over yourself, May.

March has spawned numerous significant individuals, including inventors Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, and Rene Descartes; literary titans Robert Frost, Flannery O’Connor, and Dr. Seuss; Hall of Fame athletes Cy Young, Gordie Howe, and Shaquille O’Neal; high-profile entertainers Elton John, Chuck Norris, and Lady Gaga; and harder-to-categorize movers and shakers like Harriet Tubman, Vincent Van Gogh, and Michelangelo. And since Sir Isaac Newton, Taylor Swift, and LeBron James were all born in December, it’s obvious each member of this accomplished trio was conceived in March!

Even more impressive, consider this: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Emperor Caligula, Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Jeffrey Dahmer, Saddam Hussein, Benito Mussolini, Ayatollah Khomeini and the Reverend Jim Jones all weren’t born in March! And there’s a 91.7% chance Jack the Ripper wasn’t either.

March has numerous assets, but also some very real liabilities. Drawback number one: it’s one of only two months without a three-day weekend.

New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day, Patriots Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day all provide their respective months with a built-in leisure Monday. The only other federal holiday-less month is August, but since much of the country is on vacation during that time anyway, the void is less noticeable.

Being three-day-weekend-free is bad enough, but adding insult to injury, March is an hour shorter than the other six 31-day months. Blame the Energy Policy Act of 2005 for that and it was what changed the start of DST from the last Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March.

At least March is still as long as January, May, July, August, October, and December are in Arizona, Hawaii, and the five populated US territories (Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands) that don’t observe DST.

March clearly needs an image makeover, so I’m spending this weekend trying to invent a catchy new motto for it. Possible slogans I’ve come up with so far:

“Happier than a March hare,” “Eagerly anticipate the Ides of March,” and “In like Manson, out like Tubman.”

Okay; I know these all sound pretty weak. But you try being creative when you’ve only got 47 hours to work with! <