I think you are right Mike. It seems to me that the last twenty years or so.(even longer if I think harder to when my kids were very small.)everything has changed in how people plan on holidays, etc. Also events happening at the same time is just poor planning in my mind. It also seems that the public school system here in the US, gets more and more holidays , just excuses to stay home in my opinion.
When I went to school there were very few holidays that you got time off for. There was Labor Day, but we started school after Labor Day, Now in the past few years, kids start school the week before and then get time off for Labor Day. It makes no sense to me to go to school for one week then have a holiday already...Then we got Thanksgiving, (the Thursday and Friday) Christmas was the week before Christmas and the day after New years we went back. We then had no more holidays till Easter Vacation and Memorial Day.
Now kids get Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President's Day, all these in addition to the usual Labor Day, Christmas Break, Thanksgiving , Easter and Memorial Day. I figure with this new system kids are getting at least 5-10 more days a year and the year has gotten shorter than it was when I went to school. (Lets just say I was on the playground when they announced President Kennedy had been shot and we all watched on T.V. in the classroom and everyone was sent home early, I do think the next day we had school closed, but this was special. This was also one of the only times Disneyland was closed , to honor the death of President John F. Kennedy.
Here where I live they have mass scheduling as well that makes no sense; There was a widespread event called the NorthCountry Fair which was an all weekend event, then the following weekend was a Medieval Fair in one town and the same thing the next week in another town, and they wonder why the attendance was so low. I mean this is a small town, One town only has like a population of 770 people!
Then there are three separate music festivals spread out over a five month period in such a small population. One is the NorthCoast Jazz Festival, The other is called Blues by the Bay and then there is the world famous Kinetic Sculpture Race and of course the world famous, Reggae on the River. I think except for the Kinetic Sculpture Race which people from all over the United State and around the world come to compete in, (3 day event, involving kinetic sculptures that compete on land, on the sand dunes and in the bay, all sculptures have to be able to withstand all those arenas and are all hand built) the rest have become too close together. In fact this past Spring they decided to cancel the Jazz Festival which has been held for the past 20 years + because of the cost of hiring the events, the food, the cost of putting up the event, and the return has begun to slide because of the economy, so an event which is a staple for this area is not being held this year, to the dismay of many.
Another thing that upsets many people is the timing of some of these events. Humboldt county has a baseball team that is in the mInor league standing but has some well known players that have gone onto baseball teams such as the Giants and the Mariners, ( two I can think of off hand) and when the Humboldt Crabs (Their name) are playing at home they get good attendance, but to schedule a Humboldt State Universtity game at the same time or one of these many fairs on the same Friday or Weekend, is bad, they lose the attendance they could get. I know they can't allways plan for things like this, but the fairs, and special events know things like this ahead of time, ..
AS for World Vegetarian Day, and Sausage month, all I can say is Vegetarian Sausage for me!
RWM
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Topic: Holiday Ramblings (Read 6790 times)