Bacon just got a new best friend - fudge.”
- Homer Simpson
This weekend I celebrated Sweetest Day with my wife. For the first time REALLY celebrated it, with all of the things that I knew my wife would enjoy. I gave her a card, a present and candy(corn) and a promise to take her to brunch on Sunday. I've lived in NE Ohio for almost 14 years and two things still amaze me, lightning bugs and Sweetest Day!
Okay, that and maybe the city’s love for the beleaguered Browns. HEY! I spent almost 40 years, that’s all of my childhood and most of my adult life waiting for St. Elway to part the Rocky Mountain headwaters and finally win NOT one but two of the big ones for the Mile High City. Forget the “Drive” and the “Fumble,” I know suffering too pal.
Back to my two amazement's however. The first is easier to understand than the second because while I never actually saw a “lightning bug,” “fire-fly,” “June Bug,” until I was in my forties, I did know about them from things like Disney movies. These cute little Jiminy-esqe creatures would be crammed into a mason jar and used to light up the country side for miles and miles.
The first time I actually did see one, I was on an early evening walk with my wife. This mini-firework nearly flew into my face. "WHOAAA!" What the heck was that?" "It’s a lightening bug," she says, like she was teaching a three year old about nature. "You've never seen a lightning bug?" Surprised at just how incredulous she is, I had to come back with something. "Well you’ve never seen a buffalo named Ralphie?" “I thought buffalo were called bison.” “They are, except when they’re the University of Colorado’s mascot … Ralphie the Buffalo! They named it after the kid from A Christmas Story." Not getting the joke, she misses a lot of my jokes, she swells with pride and says to me “You know I saw them film that movie…” “… downtown at the soldier thingee” I finish for her. I’d heard the story a dozen times before. “The Higbee Building,” she corrected. I didn’t answer because I was busy chasing another firefly down the street. Trying to catch one between my cupped hands and peer into it to watch the greenish glow.
The second thing that amazes me and I had NO idea what it was, until moving here, is Sweetest Day. Sweatest Day!?!? Who celebrates perspiration? Ooops I read that wrong. The ad read Don’t Forget Sweetest Day! "Huh? What?!? Is this new, like Grandparents Day, Bosses Day, and Secretary … I mean Administrative Assistants Day. We never had this in Denver. We had the perfunctory Valentines Day, Mother’s Day, Grandparent’s Day, Bosses Day, but no Sweetest Day.
As if I were a foreigner in a strange land, surrounded by kindly strangers, I’m met with advice. It’s advice from those wanting to keep Snidely “A.G.” Whiplash, or Boris “Hallmark” Baddanoff from parting me from my money.
"It's a way for American Greetings to make MORE money" someone tells me.
"It was invented by Hallmark" says another.
"The candy companies, they're to blame ... BLAME THEM! Gather the pitch forks and torches and KILL them, kill them all!
“We never celebrate it!” “Why isn’t there something for single people?”
Sweetest Day, a "concocted promotion" created by the greeting card and/or candy industry solely to increase sales of their products. Why else would I hear radio spots urging me to make the trek to stand in line for porcine products layered in chocolate and salt. "Hey! Let's go get sweet, sickly Aunt Barb some chocolate covered bacon to perk up her spirits, sodium and cholesterol count!"
If I were to listen to these people, well than obviously I’m to believe that Sweetest Day is a fake holiday wrapped in a flying saucer shaped Jiffy Pop pan.
Wikipedia tells me that Sweetest Day is an observance celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Northeast United States on the third Saturday in October. Once known as a day to spread love and cheer to the unfortunate, this popular, or unpopular, depending upon whom you ask, holiday in the northern U.S. is now known as a day to show affection to the loved ones in your life.
It is described by Retail Confectioners International as an "occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed.
Geee … now wasn’t that just like holiday dinner where you meet your sister’s fiancee, a new convert to Catholicism, fresh from catechism class. The one who knows all of the scripture from the Bible, can name all the apostles, list all mortal AND venial sins AND knows the Ten Commandments both backwards and forwards! Or the new American Citizen who knows all of the branches of government.
But … once again I digress. So, as promised, my wife and I go to a wonderful restaurant for Sunday Brunch and as we drive home together, life is good.
Wait for it … wait ….
That is until my wife, a four time cancer survivor, begins to have pain. Pain as she describes it, ranging in scale from 2 to 8. Two being a slight pinch, like when I prick my finger to test my blood sugars. A ten is like how I heard someone once describe childbirth. "Take your left thumb and forefinger and grab your lower lip, then do the same with your right thumb and forefinger and grab your upper lip. Now PULL your top lip over the TOP of your head!"
You can never know the agony that you experience, the chill that goes through you when you think that perhaps the “C” word has reentered your life and the lives of those you love until you have been around someone who has fought the brave fight against cancer.
After spending a grueling seven hours at the hospital, it turns out that she may have had just a severe case of acid reflux. There will likely be more tests, there are always more tests. But for tonight, most of us can almost sleep peacefully.
Almost …
It’s 3:00 in the morning and my wife is asleep. Sweetest Day has come and gone, I'm writing and eating candy corn.
Click BANG C’ya Bye!
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