Recently I ran into an old acquaintance at the grocery store who, clearly hoping I’d ask him what he’d been up to, inquired about my own recent doings. I gave him a generic response about the job and the kids.
“Been there, done that,” he said. Then I reluctantly queried, “So, what’s new with you?”
“Same old, same old,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders and adding with a smile nearly as inauthentic as the one I’d just given him, “It’s just another day.”
No, it wasn’t. I don’t care how predictable someone’s job, spouse or children are; no day is exactly like the previous one. Nor will it be precisely like the next one, either.
Take today, for example. Not only will I put a multicolored hard-boiled Easter egg in my lunch for the second consecutive day, this morning I plan on introducing a new and exciting task to my sophomore English students at Kennebunk High School. I’ll be assigning each 10th grade student to do a revision of an in-class writing he or she did earlier this year. The object is to help each of them proofread, correct, edit and revise a previously begun essay, and ultimately produce an articulate, thoughtful piece of writing which will highlight each individual author’s strengths as a written communicator. Imagine the pride each of them will feel thanks to their finished product! I can almost hear the eager gasps of delight my 16-year-old students will no doubt expel when I inform them of this new challenge in class today. What 10th grade student doesn’t enjoy a long-term assignment from their English teacher?
Later today I’ll be taking part (weather permitting) in a Little League practice. My son’s baseball team will be getting together at 5:30 to continue working on their hitting, throwing, catching and collective attention span. Maybe this will be the night one of our boys hits a ball into the outfield for the first time without his hands stinging, or flawlessly fields a grounder and fires it across the diamond to a first baseman who’ll catch it without flinching. Perhaps another one of our 11 players will volunteer to put on the catcher’s gear, or will tag up and advance a base after a fly ball to an outfielder. Our team has a perfect record so far this season, one which we hope to maintain when the games actually start this coming weekend. There’s no limit to what we may accomplish tonight!
Anyone doubting today is going to be unique and remarkable need only look at history. English colonists made landfall at Cape Henry, Va. on April 26, 1607 after 144 days at sea, and ultimately established Jamestown, the first permanent British settlement in North America. And with the American Civil War winding down exactly 258 years later, Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrendered his army to Union General William T. Sherman near Durham, N.C., while in rural northern Virginia, Union cavalry troops cornered and killed John Wilkes Booth, who had allegedly assassinated President Abraham Lincoln two weeks earlier.
The city of Los Angeles dedicated its brand-new, 32-story city hall on this date in 1928. And on April 26, 1963, Libya amended its constitution to allow women the right to vote in its elections.
But don’t count on everything being peaches and cream today. On April 26, 1965, a Rolling Stones concert in London, Ontario was shut down 15 minutes after it began because of excessive rioting, which begs the question: What sort of rioting isn’t excessive? Twenty-nine years ago today a former police officer gunned down 57 people in a South Korean shooting spree; exactly two decades later a 19-year-old expelled student killed 17 people (including himself) at his old school in Erfurt, Germany.
What takes place today may not matter tomorrow, but it could still be making an impact decades or even centuries from now. Who knew that John James Audubon, who was born in what is now Haiti on this date in 1785, would grow up to become a world-renowned ornithologist, artist and naturalist? Or that Tomoyuki Tanaka, born 101 years ago today in Kashiwara, Osaka, Japan, would create movie monster Godzilla in an effort to illustrate the terror Japanese citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki felt during and after the atomic bombings of their cities?
Baseball stars Hack Wilson (1900) Sal Maglie and Virgil Trucks (both in 1917), and Amos Otis (1947) were all born on this date, and comedienne Carol Burnett made her Earthly debut 78 years ago today. But current entertainers beware: Gypsy Rose Lee (1970), Irene Ryan (“Granny” on The Beverly Hillbillies; 1973), Count Basie (1984), Broderick Crawford (1986), and Lucille Ball (1989) all expired on April 26.
“Same old same old,” and “Been there, done that,” indeed! Only people with dull minds have dull days.
— Andy Young teaches in Kennebunk, and lives in Cumberland.
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