March 1, 2024
Just Saying…
March and one April Holiday Celebrated
By Q.C. Jones
As I sit down to my trusty keyboard and begin the process of writing something insanely interesting and witty about the month of March, several ideas are popping around in my mind. First thought, I could wax elegantly on special days and weeks which roll through the month. My immediate thoughts focused on both the Ides of March on the 15th and Saint Patrick’s Day which rolls around on March 17th. I hesitated. Both events are well known, deeply chronicled, and after contemplating, I decided it might be better to as they say back in Taylorville, “let these sleeping dogs lay.”
Turning to the internet for inspiration, I managed to find hundreds of other special holidays. Nothing seems more appropriate than National Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. Throwing heaping handfuls of confetti at tradition, this glorious day allows anyone to manufacture a special holiday agenda!
Further there appears you can contribute to holiday lists like “National Day Calendar” or register by submitting the Holiday with “National Today.” These websites both register your holiday, provide it with a dedicated page and increase its visibility. Now, other slackers the world over can latch on to your holiday and use it as an excuse to skip dull family gatherings or work events.
Just for the record, I have registered April 1st as QC Jones Just Saying – Reader Appreciation Day. By way of this article, I would like to get approval for the giant parade of people crossing second street in downtown Davenport from The Drawing Room Cigar Lounge to The Raccoon Motel each year on this date. As a side note for the editorial staff of the publication, please budget the money needed for band, banners, and giant inflatable caricatures of your now famous writer – QC Jones.
With this bookkeeping moment over, allow me to outline just a couple of my other favorite days in March.
March 11th is Johnny Appleseed Day. Back in the 1960s every kid in America was given a good healthy bite of the Johnny Appleseed story. Rather than a fairy tale, this was the life of John Chapman. Here’s how it went. Johnny Appleseed wandered about the west planting apple trees because he wanted every kid to have apples to eat. We saw pictures of a kindly looking guy traipsing through the woods while wearing a pot on his head. Many of the pictures featured birds, deer, and other wildlife as his companions.
According to an article in the Smithsonian Magazine, the only trouble is the apple seeds Johnny planted were not the red delicious types found down at your grocery. Apparently, Johnny’s apples weren’t for eating. Instead, they were the prime ingredient in the favorite “hooch” of the day – hard apple cider. The article goes on to say, “Up until Prohibition, an apple grown in America was far less likely to be eaten than to wind up in a barrel of cider.” And according to another Appleseed biographer, “Transplanted New Englanders on the frontier drank a reported 10.52 ounces of hard cider per day (for comparison, the average American today drinks 20 ounces of water a day).” The article goes on to state during prohibition, the FBI made a practice of chopping down these old apple groves to eliminate bootlegging operations.
National Tequilla Day falls on March 16. With Johnny “The Bootlegger” Appleseed in mind, let’s skip back in time about 200 years. Cortez and his merry gang of Conquistadors arrived on the sunny shores of Mexico and were in search for some party liquor. They discovered the taste of the fermented mezcal wine enjoyed by the natives was as revolting as a long drink of dirty Mexican water. But stashed somewhere in their treasure trove of swords, muskets, and conquistador hats, they found a copper still. The distilling process resulted in Tequilla.
Getting its name from Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico is a product of distilling blue agave cactus. And, while a distilled version of other cactus is still available and sometimes famously contains one of the worms that live in the plant, genuine Tequilla has neither the worm nor the foul taste of day old kerosene.
Don Pedro Sánchez de Tagle is seen as the father of Tequilla. He started producing it because of a ban on Mexican vineyards a wine tax set in place by King Phillip II in 1595. Like the Boston Tea Party, these taxes created a movement which is about as far from “tea totaling” as anything I can think of on short notice.
Finally, there is one more day I would like to commemorate in a negative sort of way. Daylight Savings Day March 10th. Researchers have determined that Daylight Savings is a health hazard and needs to be banned. Last year there was a strong movement to eliminate this practice. Why? Higher percentages of heart attacks, documented increases in car crashes, more workplace injuries, and statistically larger chances of miscarriages are known and somehow swept under the table.
I propose all this springing ahead stuff be replaced by celebrations overflowing with hard apple cider and Tequilla. And I look forward to seeing you all on QC Jones Just Saying Day 2024. Stay tuned… Just Saying
