Doubleday not only did not invent baseball, he didn’t even PLAY it.
Doubleday, as you probably know, was a Civil War general and bona fide war hero. At the turn of the century, Albert Spalding oversaw a “Commission” on the origins of baseball designed to estblish it as an “American” game so that (he believed) he could sell more baseball equipment. Evidence that baseball was derived from the English game of rounders was ignored, and the myth that Doubleday had invented baseball in Cooperstown was presented as the straight dope. In fact, poor old Abner had never invented, played, or if his extensive memoirs are any indication, even spent a single minute thinking about baseball. He had nothing to do with it.
The modern game as we would recognize it now was invented by Alexander Cartwright. However, predecessors of baseball, called “town ball,” had been played in the United States since before the Revolution.
Dr. James Naismith, on the other hand, certainly did invent basketball. From scratch.
My mom used to give my sister and me candy for Sweetest Day. Nothing big–usually just a lollipop or two. It was cute.
My sister’s boyfriend gives her roses and presents and all kinds of crap. My cousin and her husband got married on Sweetest Day one year. I know people that celebrate it as if it’s Christmas (or whatever your big yearly holiday may be).
Usually my husband and I celebrate Sweetest Day as such:
Me: (looking at calendar) Whaddya know…it’s Sweetest Day.
Him: Huh. Well, Happy Sweetest Day…er, whatever.
Me: Yeah, same here. I didn’t get you anything. I didn’t know.
Him: Me neither. What exactly is “Sweetest Day” again?
Me: I think it’s like Valentine’s Day. Only in October.
Him: Yeah, that’s…uh…nice. Want pizza?
Me: Okay.
Okay, so they couldn’t leave goddamn well enough alone, after foisting Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparents’ Day, Secretar- oops, pardon, “Administrative Assistants” Day, Boss’s Day and Hallowe’en, on us, now we have to have VD2?
Actually, in Japan the department stores do it up right: for maximum profit, Valentine’s day is divided neatly in two. February 14 is Red Day, when women make gifts to men, of course having to decide which men to give gifts to (everyone in the office group? Just good friends? Only the boss?). March 14 is White Day, when men make gifts to the women who gave to them four weeks earlier. That women are saddled with gift-giving ambiguity is, to be sure, purely coincidental…
Unless you’re only ten or eleven years old, I sincerely doubt you’ve always had to share your birthday with “Sweetest Day,” since it is of very recent invention.
If I hadn’t looked it up I would think “Sweetest Day” was a Saturday Night Live skit or a “Simpsons” gag. It’s almost surreal in its stupidity.
Yes, I found that one too. And I found it over, and over, and over again, always with more or less the same wording and always put out by Hallmark Cards or other grteeding card companies. It has all the makings of urban (or in this case, corporate) legend of recent vintage, or at least an old newspaper clipping dusted off to sell cards.
I know Sweetest Day was celebrated as early as 1986, because when I was in kindergarten, I sometimes had to stay with the neighbor lady after school, and she drank her coffee from a “Happy Sweetest Day” mug. I remember being six years old and thinking “What the heck is Sweetest Day?”
I consider myself to be an American (living in America and all) and I didn’t know about Sweetest Day until I started working at a teddy bear factory, where it is our 4th busiest holiday. Our company does a heluva good job promoting it, but I think it’s just a midwest US thing; not an American thing. Then again I live in Vermont, which is basically Canada anyway.
By the way, happy belated Dragwyr Day!
Personally I find it offensive enough to have to pay a gazillion time mark up on any of their stinkin’ cards. $3.50 for a card that costs a nickel to produce is outrageous. But, if I ever came home with one of the “bargain priced” ones, I’d hate for my wife to feel “second rate.”
So the women are the ones making the overtures, while the men merely reciprocate? I wouldn’t have thought Japanese culture gave women that much freedom of choice. (No offense, just curious.)
But if it were the other way around, no guys would have bought candy in the first place. As it is, women buy candy for a number of reasons. First, as you mention it is a rare opportunity to make the first move. I think this is more important for students exchanging chocolates - an office lady would be more likely to make her move at an office party. Second, and more importantly, she can butter up her superious and/or other men in the office for professional reasons, and if she gives candy for either reason, she will feel compelled to give candies to others so that they will not be offended, and (in the case of the rare true flirting gift)to diffuse attention. Of course, she is also aware that if she gives no candy at all she will likely be seen as a spoilsport, which is not a good thing for a junior OL to be.
Finally, she may have previous obligations to men in her office, due to gifts, promotions, support, and Red day is a good chance to service those obligations (I say service because, as these two holidays make clear, obligation is constantly maintained in Japanese offices.)
A Japanese man is far less likely to feel as though giving choclate to a woman in his office will benefit him professionally.
I’ve never even heard of Sweetest Day. Of course, I go out of my way to ignore these useless Hallmark-days. I refuse to celebrate mother’s day, for example. Although I always make a point to buy my mom flowers the day before or the day after, just to show that I’m not a jerk. But never on the day itself.
