HAPPY DAY AFTER

I’ve written about the day before Christmas…then added Christmas Day into the mix…

So it only seems appropriate that I write about December 26.

So…happy day after Christmas…like Christmas it’s a day that can enchant and captivate…but it has the disadvantage of arriving one day late.

December 26 knows it could be a day more people would adore…

If only it showed up a little earlier…if it had arrived one day before.

(Not to make light of Boxing Day or the Feast of St. Stephen…which on the 26th are on display…ill-fated,, however,  to be celebrated in the shadow of Christmas Day.)

Yes I’m afraid December 26th if destined forever to be cursed…

with the relative obscurity of the day that follows January 1st.

So today I celebrate all those days who just because of their one-day lateness

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

We remember the first man on the moon…how Neil Armstrong led the way…

while the second Buzz Aldrin, is as remembered as they day after Valentine’s day

We remember Edmund Hillary, the first to scale Mt. Everest one cold and fateful day

but who remembers, Tenzing Norgay, the sherpa who accompanied him on his way?

Mt. Everest it’s 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 day of July.

Amelia Earhart was the first to fly across the Atlantic Ocean…at her many accolades were hurled…but did you know the second, Geraldine Mock..actually made it all the way around the world?

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

that Geraldine would be a footnote 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 days after deserve a home in our hearts too.

So hold your chin up December 26th, today is your day to shine…

after all you could show up only every 4years…like February 29.