THE CELEBRATION CONTINUES

I wished you a Happy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with merriment and laughter

and now I wish you Happy December 26 the less well known…day after.

(If you are from the United Kingdom or Canada…put this poem away

You have solved December 26th’s dilemma by celebrating Boxing Day)

But in America December 26 is a day that attempts to be brave and save face

for it knows it could have been a holiday but had to settle for second place.

Yes, I’m afraid December 26 in history is fated to remain unreckoned.

doomed to stand in relative obscurity with its neighbor January 2nd.

Today I celebrate all those days who because of their chronological lateness

are destined to travel down the path of history...one day away from greatness.

Do you know the name of the first man on the moon? Of course, everybody does.

But do you remember the second, Ed Aldrin, his friends and family called him Buzz.

We remember Edmund Hillary, the first to scale Mt. Everest, the first to find his way

but who remembers, Tenzing Norgay, the sherpa who accompanied him that day?

They climbed the tallest mountain in the world but the second is almost as high

Yet K-2 is only an afterthought, kind of like the 5th of July.

We remember Snow White as the first movie Disney brought to the silver screen

but the second, Pinocchio must take its place next to the innocuous March 18.

Everyone knows Amelia Earhart, her story is one of courage and devotion

She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

The second was Geraldine Mock, at her even more accolades were hurled

for she kept going after crossing the Atlantic, and flew around the world.

Isn’t it funny how life works, for none of us could have foreseen 

that Geraldine would be disregarded in history like the day after Halloween.

But such is the way the calendar unfolds from January to December

Some days, like people, are destined for greatness while others we hardly remember.

I think it’s time we change all that and give these days and people their due.

for I believe second places and day afters deserve a home in our hearts too.

So hold your head up December 26th…you have no reason to whine…

After all you could come around only once every 4 years….

my condolences to February 29.