Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

 

It’s difficult to not live in the past.

When it still seems as if this is 2018.

There is no doubt, 2019 is going to be a big year.

My wife and I received a number of lovely wall calendars. We had to decide which calendars to hang. We passed the surplus on to people less fortunate in the calendar arena.

The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used civil calendar in the world. It’s named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October 1582. How did that not become a holiday on the calendar? When Pope Gregory XIII introduced his calendar, Europe used the Julian calendar, first implemented by Julius Caesar. The Roman emperor’s system miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes and fell out of sync with the seasons. This ticked off his buddy Brutus and the rest, including Julius Caesar, is history. Gregory became concerned because it meant Easter fell further away from the spring equinox each year.

There are other calendars: Persian, Mayan, Jewish, Coptic, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, seasonal, busy and the calendar your unemployed nephew must be using since his unfortunate yo-yo accident.

I found a stack of my old calendars and day planners. Each was filled with scribbled notes and appointments. Most were written in pencil to allow erasing. Things changed. They were the Rubik’s Cubes of calendars. It took many twists and turns to make them work.

Incredibly, not a single one of the calendars in our home marks Jan. 15 as the date of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. The molasses turned deadly when a holding tank burst and 2.3 million gallons of the sticky stuff poured through the streets of Boston. And nary a calendar has Eeyore’s birthday indicated on May 9. Gloomy Eeyore isn’t a fan of much, other than eating thistles in “Winnie the Pooh,” but I’m a fan of his and need to know his natal day.

Don’t look for a January thaw to be indicated on a calendar. It’s not a regular thing. It’s a gift.

Our 2019 calendars offered a pleasing mix of lovely images and thought-provoking information.

I put up a couple of the calendars. It wasn’t a tough task. I placed each calendar where its predecessor had been. There was a handy nail already there.

I’m careful where I put things. I was educated on that subject early in my married life. Whenever any of my stuff strayed from its proper place, my wife asked, “Does this belong here?”

“How can I stand here with my head between my ears and not realize my grave error?” I asked just once.

“What makes you so stubborn?” she responded. At least I think that’s what she meant to say, but “stubborn” came out sounding a lot like “stupid.”   

I answered, “Sheer determination.”

My wife had to ask me that rhetorical question, “Does this belong here?” only 12,876 times before I became learned.

Attaching dates to a wall was a welcome endeavor, as it took my mind off trying to think up new passwords. It caused me to think of the people producing the calendars. If one of those poor souls took just one day off, he could lose his job at the calendar factory.

As I took a step back to look at the new calendar gracing the wall of my office, I found myself grateful for 2018 and that a calendar doesn’t need a protective case, battery or recharging. Some folks believe the Earth is flat. I believe a wall calendar is flat and I don’t believe it’s a fabrication by some government agency.

In my youthful days, many young men became interested in automobiles because garages had calendars featuring scantily clad women. I knew a fellow who kept his calendar set to the past month. He did that because his creditors told him he was always a month behind.

People say that people say that paper calendars are going the way of buggy whips. I use digital calendars, too. Why? It’s because they are easy, mobile and as reliable as the input. The days go equally fast no matter how I keep score.

I’m not proud of it, but there have been occasions when I’ve wished time would go faster. I don’t do that any longer. I used to say, “Are we there yet?” I never ask that question anymore.

As I stared at the 2019 calendar on the wall, I had an epiphany.

It’s never too late to take a nap.

Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Saturday.