Today is Sunday, November 11 and there are only 44 days until Christmas. By now you should have your lists to the people who you hope will buy you presents. Today we remember the birthdays of Abigail Adams, George Patton, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr and me. On this day in 1620 41 pilgrims landed in Massachusetts and signed the Mayflower Compact, in 1865 Mary Edward Walker, first Army female surgeon, was awarded the Medal of Honor and in 1959 the first episode of “Rocky and His Friends” aired. In Angola it is Independence Day, in Belgium and France it is Armistice Day, in Maldives it is Republic Day and in the US it is Veterans Day and National Sundae Day.

I would like to start off by discussing today’s holiday – Veterans Day. This is an official US holiday that honors military veterans. It coincides with Armistice Day and Remembrance Day celebrated in other countries that mark the anniversary of the end of World War I. Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, when the Armistice with Germany went into effect. The United States Congress adopted a resolution on June 4, 1926, requesting that President Calvin Coolidge issue annual proclamations calling for the observance of November 11 with appropriate ceremonies.

In 1945 World War II veteran Raymond Weeks had the idea to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, not just those who died in World War I. Weeks led a delegation to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who supported the idea of National Veterans Day. A bill was presented establishing the holiday through Congress and was signed into law on May 26, 1954. It had been eight and a half years since Weeks held his first celebration for all veterans. Congress amended the bill on June 1, 1954, replacing "Armistice" with "Veterans," and it has been known as Veterans Day since.

Moving along, but still staying somewhat on the subject, there are a few more things I would like to mention. First, the day is Ve-ter-ans Day not Vetrins Day. It’s only one more syllable! Please pronounce it correctly. Another thing I have been mentioning is that it is, in fact, my birthday. This year I am celebrating the 39^th anniversary of my 30^th birthday (I will give you a minute to do the math). I have always enjoyed celebrating my birthday. It means that I am still alive, so no matter how many years it is, I will enjoy it.

When I was just a kid, we had the day off from school and our town always had a parade actually on Veterans Day. For a number of years I had my friends convinced that it was all done for my birthday. It didn’t take long for them to find out the truth. I think it was because they complained that we didn’t get off from school or a parade for their birthdays. Nowadays, people say that because I was born on Veterans Day I was destined to go into the service and become a veteran. That is like saying that because a person was born on Easter they were destined to be a large rabbit that distributed colored eggs and candy.

 I am a veteran and am proud of it, but I will be the first to point out that I really did not have a choice. My only choices were to run off to Canada, go to college or be drafted. My high school years were not my best, so college was not really an option. I didn’t go to Canada because I figured so many had gone before me that all the good jobs would be taken. Being drafted was difficult to avoid. Back then, if you were breathing you were going. I opted to enlist in the Air Force, figuring I had a better chance of not going to Vietnam and ended up volunteering to go there anyway. Go figure.

For years everyone has geared up for the big Black Friday sale on the day after Thanksgiving. It was a tradition that many looked forward to. They would plan their route, make their lists and go to bed early so that they could join the crush the next day. Over the years, things got crazy and people started camping out at stores to get one of the 10 special items of the year. I never understood that part of the whole thing. If your company has a product that everyone wants, why would you only have a limited quantity available. Aside from making people angry because they did not get it … but I digress.

My point is that this year, the Black Friday sales started on the day after Halloween, a month before it used to start. So now we will have Black Friday sales going on all month, messing up another tradition. Who didn’t look forward to seeing people pushing and shoving to get into the stores to buy everything they could get their hands on. Who cared if it was what they really wanted or if it would fit? The point was they got it at the special Black Friday price (which was inflated by 40% so they could cut it by 20% and make money). I have always said, and still maintain, that if you wait until December, you will get things at a better price. That is when retailers realize that, if they don’t reduce the prices, they will be stuck with lot of stuff. The up side to starting Black Friday almost a month early is that you don’t have to camp out in a parking lot, drinking tepid coffee and making sure no one jumps your spot in line.

This week our fact tells us that the average American will eat 35,000 cookies in a lifetime. Are they serious? I exceeded that number a long time ago between my mother’s great Christmas cookies and the Girl Scout cookies I get each year. Not to mention the baking I do now. If all a person eats is 35,000 they are slackers. Come on America – eat up!