Columbus Day

This is a holiday weekend, one of those holidays when the banks are closed, the stores are having sales,but I never quite know who else is working.  I went off to the Technical College to demand a refund because I didn't get to do my crocheting on Saturday, and they were working and processed my refund.   The class was held in a building on the other side of the campus from the main building, which is where I expected it to be.  I certainly expected to be told when I got there where it was. 

Columbus Day, remembering when Columbus discovered America on 12th October 1492, has been observed as a federal holiday since 1937, although not in Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon and South Dakota.
Hawaii celebrates Discoverers' Day, which commemorates the Polynesian discoverers of Hawaii on the same date, the second Monday of October.   South Dakota celebrates the day as an official state holiday known as "Native American Day".  Oregon does not recognize Columbus Day, neither as a holiday nor a commemoration; schools and public offices remain open. Iowa and Nevada do not celebrate Columbus Day as an official holiday; however, the governor is "authorized and requested" by statute to proclaim the day each year.   In Nevada, this probably has less to do with any objection to the celebration of the day than the fact that it is relatively close to Nevada Day, and schools and banks can only be closed for so many days.

I woke this morning to the sound of a heavy downpour, which in Oklahoma passes as a lovely day.  Blue skies and sunshine just don't cut it with them.  I have a theory that they are excited at the sight of rain because they don't know if they might get any more.

It looks a bit damp for the next couple of days until Thursday.

Do any of you know/remember the tv programme which was first aired in 1964 showing 14 children who were aged 7, and they have been revisited every seven years, just talking about themselves?  I saw them again when they were 14, 21, and 28 but I missed them in their thirties and forties until I caught up with them tonight, at 56.  I think it has been the most fascinating tv programme ever, and I'm glad I got to see it here tonight.  It was on for two and a half hours.   The little girl who at 7 said she was going to work in Woolworth's, actually carved out a very good career as an administrator at a  London University college, although she never went to University herself.   And Neil, the little boy who was so happy at 7, always smiling and skipping along the road, but was very miserable at 14, and at 21 and 28 was homeless, is now at 56 settled in a community in Cumbria, and is a Lib-Dem councillor, and a lay reader.  He didn't want to talk about it but did admit to having mental health issues.