These Days

Today is Patriots' Day, a holiday I never celebrated growing up because I grew up in New Jersey and which I'm still not celebrating because I had to work today. Patriots' Day commemorates the opening battle of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Patriots' Day is also the day the Boston Marathon happens.

This year, Patriot's Day falls on April 20th, which happens to be the anniversary of the shootings at Columbine and Hitler's birthday.

I knew all of that before, but what I didn't know before is that 4:20 is code for "time to smoke pot," so I guess today is smoke pot day, though I won't be taking part.

I also learned that yesterday, April 19th, which is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, is Bicycle Day. When I first heard this, I thought it was kind of neat and I was happy that I'd picked up my bike fresh from its tune up at the bike shop yesterday. But then I subsequently learned that Bike Day has less to do with bikes than it does with LSD, as it marks the first recorded acid trip, which was taken by a man riding a bicycle.

I learned that little bit of information from Tom Devine's blog, which I read after seeing Tom Devine on the Northampton Bike Path on Saturday, which was the Annual Clean Up Day on the bike path. He was there to pitch in; I was only using the path to jog.

I don't know Tom Devine personally, only by reading his blog, and I thought about stopping and saying, "hey, you're Tommy Devine," but I was sweating and feeling guilty about not being involved in the clean up, so I didn't. I kept on jogging.