Today is Sunday, February 17 and there are only 267 days until my birthday, for those of you who are keeping track. Today we remember the birthdays of Arcangelo Corelli, William Cadbury and Zina Bethune. On this day in 1621 Miles Standish was chosen as the first commander of Plymouth colony, in 1817 Baltimore became the first US city to be lit by gas and in 1969 Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash recorded an album which was never released. In Sri Lanka it is Maha Shivaratree and in the US it is National Random Acts of Kindness Day and National Cabbage Day.

As you probably know, tomorrow is Presidents’ Day. Presidents Day is an American holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February. Originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington, the holiday became popularly known as Presidents Day after it was moved as part of 1971’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers. While several states still have individual holidays honoring the birthdays of Washington, Abraham Lincoln and other figures, Presidents Day is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents, past and present. An interesting note is that, while Lincoln was lumped into Presidents’ Day, many government offices also close for Lincoln’s Birthday. There is not much else I can tell you that I haven’t mentioned in the past, so we will just let it go at this point.

I would like to let you all know that this will be my last posting. I have been posting each week for over six years. In the past couple months it has become more difficult to come up with ideas that do not repeat things I have discussed before. Let’s face it. Commercials continue to be ridiculous, like the one with a turkey sitting by a pool, reading as a way of selling a medication to help you quit smoking. Perfume commercials will never make sense and do not get me going on commercials for insurance. All I can say is that a number of people should be glad that I do not have to approve their ideas before they are made into commercials.

I can only go on so many times about poor drivers before even I get tired of the subject. I have talked about the show on the boardwalks at the Jersey shore, but you really need to see it for yourself to appreciate it. The same goes for the adult women on the beaches who try to get by wearing the bathing suits they wore in the fifth grade. 

By now I think everyone knows where I stand on things. I have always tried to be apolitical and I have tried to avoid commenting on religion and other controversial topics. It has always been my purpose to give you a different view on things and to be entertaining in the process. I hope that I have achieved that goal.

My final fact tells us that over 550 hot dogs are eaten every second in the US. Prove it! These kinds of facts are given to us all the time, but there is no real way to prove the veracity of these statements. I could tell you that the word “like” is used 1789 times a day by the average teenager and most people would nod their heads and say, “Yeah, they use that word, like, a lot.” The point is that I made that up and no one has any way to prove it right or wrong, they just accept it as so. 

I thank those of you who have taken the time to read my offerings. I hope they gave you a chuckle or two. Have a good life!