Today is Sunday, January 7 and there are only 72 days until the first day of Spring.  Hopefully we on the east coast will have thawed out by then.  Today we remember the birthdays of James Harrington, Millard Fillmore and Maury Povich.  On this day in 1608 fire destroyed Jamestown, Virginia, in 1789 the first national Presidential election was held in the US and in 1955 Marian Anderson became the first black singer to perform at the Met.  In Liberia it is Pioneer’s Day and in the US it is National Bobblehead Day and National Tempura Day.

I know, I know, you want more about National Bobblehead Day.  There isn’t much that I could find, but here is what I have.  January 7 is National Bobblehead Day and is celebrated annually. This day was created in celebration of all the popular spring-connected head bobbing figurines.  Bobbleheads have been around for more than 100 years and they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. However, the most popular bobbleheads are those depicting athletes, professional sports teams, mascots, cartoon characters and celebrities.

On November 18, 2014 it was announced that a National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum would be opened in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The museum hosts the world’s largest collection of bobbleheads, a hall of fame section for the best bobbleheads, a variety of exhibits relating to the history and making of bobbleheads and much more. When the museum was announced, the national day was also developed. I hope that takes care of your need for information on this important holiday.

As you may know we had a rather severe storm come through this area the other day.  It was referred to as, among other things, a bombogenesis.  I looked this term up and learned that “Explosive cyclogenesis (also referred to as a weather bomb, meteorological bomb or explosive development) refers in a strict sense to a rapidly deepening extratropical cyclonic low-pressure area.”  Well, that clears that up.  I found it easier to simply refer to it as one big (insert your own profanity here) storm.  Fortunately, I had a couple things working in my favor.  One is that I am retired and didn’t have to go out anywhere.  The other is that, in the community I live in, other people are paid to clear streets, sidewalks and driveways, so I did not have to worry about burning off any of the winter fat that I have worked so hard to build up, by shoveling.

What I think is interesting is how the world conveniently stops functioning when there is a storm like this.  Prior to the storm hitting, we were hearing about protests in Iran, murders, fires and a variety of other issues.  A day before the storm, we got to see the standard shots of people frantically buying shovels, ice melt, bread, milk and toilet paper.  We heard all the dire predictions.  This storm was predicted to bring up to 12 inches, depending on which model you believed.  One forecaster showed three different models and none of them matched.  If these are all being done by meteorologists, why are they different?  I would think that they would be pretty much the same.  After all if you all do the same thing  … but I digress  

Then came the storm and all we heard about was the snow and wind and wind chill and feels like temperatures and ice and flooding and cancelled flights.  Apparently, the rest of the world used the storm to take a break and not have any problems.  Except for the inconvenience of all the snow and attendant issues, maybe more of these storms would help the world calm down a little.  And maybe pigs could learn how to whistle, too.

I was amazed how they TV stations managed to beat this thing to death.  The one station I watch has a news program that comes on at 5 PM.  They showed the typical shots of snow and wind blowing, cars sliding on the roads, people complaining about the transportation delays, live reporters standing out in the cold telling us it was snowing and experts who talked about the difficulties of dealing with the extreme cold.  At 5:30, the same talking heads came back on and spent the next 30 minutes rehashing the exact same stories.  At 6 PM they went to the News at 6.  This time we had a different newscaster and she covered basically the same material.  The only piece of interesting information I got was when the weather person said that, when going out to work the next morning, the real feel temperature would be -9, which was the same temperature as walking on the surface of Mars.  As I said earlier, I am retired and didn’t have to go out to work the next morning, so I did not feel like I was on Mars.

Fortunately, the program at 6:30 tends to be a little more national.  And it was!  It told us about the effects of the storm in the New England states and the problems that were being experienced in Boston.  I suppose it is easier to keep hitting us with the obvious, rather than cover the issues in the rest of the nation and the world.  Again it was nice of everyone to put things on hold while we dealt with the storm.

I am constantly thankful for the imaginative legislation that is created throughout the country.  It enables me to present you with facts each week that can amuse and cause you to shake your head in amazement.  This week our fact tells us that in Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on the sidewalks when a concert is on. So, is it okay if you are in the street?  What if you are eating cashews? What about Cracker Jacks, which only has some peanuts?  One of these days, someone needs to publish a book explaining the reason behind some of these crazy rules.