Andy Young: What’s in a name?

By Andy Young

I have never played a round of golf in my life, aside from the miniature variety.

Yet every year when I hang up a new calendar, I can’t help recalling my youth, and a specific professional golfer whose name appeared in the agate type on the sports page every weekend when the newspapers reliably printed the results of whatever tournament was taking place.

The late Don January won 10 different events while
competing on the Professional Golfers Association Tour.
COURTESY PHOTO 

Don January won 10 tour events during his days on the PGA (Professional Golfers Tour). I didn’t know anything about him, or any other golfer other than Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Gary Player, for that matter. But I quietly rooted for him, because who else had a month for a surname? Maybe there were other golfers with months for last names, but if there were, I never heard of them, so they don’t count.

A few other months serve as surnames for accomplished individuals. Fredric March won Academy Awards for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932) and The Best Years of our Lives (1946). Elaine May is a much-decorated writer, director, producer, actor, and comedian, and the world in general and baseball in particular has been fraught with people named May. Lee May and Carlos May were brothers. Dave May and Derrick May were father and son, as were Merrill “Pinky” May and Milt May. Fun fact: Milt and Lee, though not related, were Houston Astros teammates in 1974. Other baseball-playing Mays, past and present, include Rudy, Jerry, Trevor, Darrell, Jakie, Lucas, Scott, Joe, Jacob, and Buckshot. However, aside from all the Mays, Don August, a Milwaukee Brewer pitcher from 1988-1991, is the only other major league ballplayer with a month for a last name. Sorry, Yankee fans, but “October” isn’t Reggie Jackson’s real last name.

Do any other months qualify as surnames? According to the website imdb.com, there are currently people in the entertainment industry named Lauran September, Teddo November, and C. J. December. However, since I’ve never heard of them, they also don’t count. And I don’t feel guilty about omitting them, since to my knowledge Lauran, Teddo, and C. J. haven’t put me on any random lists they’re compiling, either.

People named for days of the week names seemingly outnumber those with month names. Rick Monday played 19 seasons of Major League Baseball. Tuesday Weld was active as an actress from 1955 to 2001, winning a Golden Globe Award along the way. Although little Wednesday was fictional (as was her brother Pugsley), she was nonetheless an important member of the creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky Addams family. A similarly fictitious day-of-the-week name from the classic TV era was Dragnet’s Sergeant Joe Friday. However, those preferring people who actually existed can cite Bill Friday, a much-decorated National Hockey League referee who was the first president of the NHL’s Officials Association. Jeff Saturday spent 14 seasons as a National Football League offensive lineman before transitioning to a position as a sports analyst for ESPN. However, the best professional conversion ever performed by someone with a day of the week for a last name was by a man who, after playing eight seasons of major league baseball switched over to a field far more appropriate for someone named Billy Sunday: he became a nationally known evangelist.

There are, of course, odder things than having a word on the calendar for a last name. Besides comedian Orson Bean, film producer Albert Broccoli, and author/journalist David Corn, there aren’t many celebrated people with a vegetable surname.

But if there are actually people named Joe Cucumber, Mary Potato, or Pat Mushroom, well, they don’t count either, because I’ve never heard of them. <

Andy Young: Time to rebrand October?

By Andy Young

Special to The Windham Eagle

Every month on the Gregorian calendar has something to recommend it. 

January brings a new year and new beginnings. February does more with 28 days than other months do with 7 to 11 percent more of them. March launches spring and can also boast of St. Paddy’s Day.

In April, George Washington bowled the first-ever 300 game in North America, Queen Victoria invented the skateboard, and Hungarian scientists ended a deadly, decade-long pandemic in 1353 by developing a mixture of boiled turnips, ground conch shells and fat-free goat’s milk that instantly killed all bubonic-plague-causing bacteria. Coincidentally, April Fools’ Day occurs at the fourth month’s outset.

May has Memorial Day weekend, June the start of summer, and July and August picnics, time at the lake, and no school.

Leaves change color in September, November has Thanksgiving, and December a whole plethora of holidays.

But what about October? It’s tough getting excited over the launching of the new fiscal year, annual labyrinthian corn mazes, or the inevitable tons of dead leaves that will soon need disposing of.

Sure, there’s Halloween, but that takes 31 long days to arrive. Also, October’s days get progressively darker, which around here accurately portends that six cold, gloomy months lie ahead. Might October need some sort of calendar-related plastic surgery (an image lift, perhaps?) to change the way it’s currently perceived?

Well-intended Octoberites tried some creative rebranding not long ago by launching Indigenous Peoples Day. But that’s had limited impact; currently only 14 American states officially celebrate it. The other 36 inexplicably continue to use the second Monday of the month to honor Ohio’s capital city.

Those concerned with sprucing up the way people view October know there’s no shortage of potential there. According to Wikipedia (a Hawaiian term literally meaning, “Fascinating information that is quite often accurate”), October has already been designated National Vegetarian Month. It’s also Italian-American Heritage and Culture Month, Filipino American History Month, and Polish American Heritage Month.

Not only that, it’s National Healthy Lung Month, National Physical Therapy Month, Liver Awareness Month, National Infertility Awareness Month, National Dental Hygiene Month, American Pharmacist Month, and National Bullying Prevention Month. Maybe October should rechristen itself as “National Good Health Month.”

October is National Pizza Month, National Seafood Month, National Pork Month, and National Popcorn Poppin’ Month. Some aspiring epicurean ought to invent an October pizza, one topped with deep-fried scallops, pork rinds, and Orville Redenbacher’s savory popcorn oil. The only problem with that: a possible clash with those advocating for the title of National Good Health Month.

Here in America, October is home to National Golf Lover’s Day (the 4^th), Clergy Appreciation Day (the 10^th), and National Mule Day (the 26^th). And on the international front, Oct. 4 is Cinnamon Roll Day in Sweden this year. The 5^th is Engineers Day in Bolivia, the 15^th is Evacuation Day in Tunisia, and the 22^nd is Wombat Day in Australia.

Six United States presidents (John Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Chester Arthur, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Jimmy Carter) were October babies. No other month can claim more.

In addition, Eleanor Roosevelt, Molly Pitcher, Pablo Picasso, Mahatma Gandhi, Bill Gates, Vladimir Putin, and Mickey Mantle all began life in October.

So did Don McLean, Chubby Checker, Gwen Stefani, Jackson Browne, Marie Osmond, Paul Simon, Sting, Bob Geldof, Sammy Hagar, John Mellencamp, John Lennon, Cliff Richard, Tito Jackson, Bob Weir, Tom Petty, Snoop Dogg, the Big Bopper, and Grace Slick. Perhaps the tenth month should be called Rocktober.

By any name, October deserves respect. There’s far more to this shamefully underappreciated month than pumpkins, the World Series, and trick-or-treating. <

Andy Young: The longest (and smallest) big month

By Andy Young

Special to The Windham Eagle

Ever since the Ides of March in the year 44 BC, when Julius Caesar was struck down by a bunch of Judases, or Brutuses, or Benedict Arnolds, or whatever backstabbers were referred to back then, it’s been plain, at least in the northern Hemisphere, that March is the most-ill-starred, least appreciated month of the Gregorian calendar.

March simply can’t win. Skiers, snowboarders, and snowmobiling enthusiasts resent it because its arrival signals their favorite season is coming to a close. Winter-haters despise it, because to them it’s just a continuation of a cold, dark, wet, depressing season that seemingly won’t ever end. Even those looking forward to spring know that March is when mosquitoes, blackflies, and ticks begin planning to make the next eight months a living Hell for the portion of humanity that enjoys spending time outdoors.   

I’ve never been a March fan. But to be fair, the month itself can hardly be faulted for the deaths of Isaac Newton, Ludwig Von Beethoven and Harriet Tubman having occurred during its 31 days. Or that monsters like Josef Mengele, Adolf Eichmann, and Osama bin Laden were all March-born.

But maybe all that infamy isn’t coincidental. The Boston Massacre took place on March 5, 1770. An earthquake on March 27, 1964 killed 131 Alaskans. The most notorious war atrocity of the Vietnam conflict, the My Lai Massacre, occurred on March 16, 1968. (Sudden thought: isn’t “war atrocity” a redundancy? But I digress.) And the disastrous 1979 partial meltdown of nuclear reactor number 2 on Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania? You guessed it: March 28.

March promoters point out that the month contains one of the year’s most festive occasions, St. Patrick’s Day. But that view is selfishly Eurocentric. Sure, St. Paddy allegedly chased all the snakes off the Emerald Isle, and at this writing they’ve never returned. But once ejected, those slithering, fork-tongued reptiles had to go somewhere, and logic suggests it was to another country or countries whose names begin with the letter “I.”  You can bet that in India and Indonesia, where the annual death toll from venomous snakebites can number in the tens of thousands, Saint Patrick is viewed no more favorably today than Typhoid Mary was by New Yorkers in the 20^th century’s first decade.

When the 21^st century dawned, it was easy to dismiss March’s few advocates as shrill, crackpot apologists whose claims their month was always getting the short straw were as tiresome as they were paranoid. But the Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave them a legitimate reason to complain. That piece of legislation pushed the start of Daylight Savings Time in the United States back four weeks from the first weekend in April, when DST had previously begun each year. Officially “springing forward” on March’s second weekend robbed the year’s third month of a vital sixty minutes. So while its 31-day brethren January, May, July, August, October, and December proudly remain 744 hours long, March now lasts for a mere 743, perennially relegating it to the lowly “second division” of months, along with 721-hour November; 30-day April, June, and September; and mini-February.

It’s tough trying to embrace a month that’s constantly providing reminders of its total lack of embraceability. I was going to attempt to list March’s assets this weekend, but I’m afraid 23 hours isn’t enough time to think of any.

My mother always claimed that if I looked hard enough, there’d always be something good to say about anyone or anything.

 

Okay. March is my second-favorite month of the year.

 

So which one is my number one?

 

The other 11 are all tied. <