Yes, But Why Thursday?

Every year about this time, a gently nagging but generally fleeting question crosses my mind.

Why, I wonder, is Thanksgiving celebrated on a Thursday?

The fact that Thanksgiving occurs every year on a Thursday seems so natural -- so divinely ordained -- that we take it for granted.  Even when that question nags me, what I usually do is resolve to check it out on Wikipedia, and then never carry through on the resolution.  (What?  A Thanksgiving resolution?  Seems like cognitive dissonance, especially if, like a typical New Year's resolution, it involves diet and exercise.)

In any case, at long last my question was answered, in an article by Monica Hesse on the front page of Wednesday's Washington Post, in which she discusses the origins and benefits of long holiday weekends.

Looking at the history of Thanksgiving, Hesse reveals why it's always been on Thursday.  Not pre-ordained, as one might expect, but rooted in the mundane:

The first federally endorsed Thanksgiving holiday was the one proclaimed by George Washington in 1789. More than 70 years later, Abraham Lincoln issued his own proclamation. But between those events were decades of relentless lobbying and letter-writing campaigns by Sarah Josepha Hale, a New Hampshirite who made it her life’s mission to formalize the then-ad hoc holiday. (She also wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”)

In Hale’s mid-19th-century heyday, “the only American holidays were Independence Day and Washington’s birthday,” says Penny Colman, who wrote “Thanksgiving: The True Story.” “And those were both military holidays — full of bombs and explosions.” Hale wanted a holiday that would honor domestic tranquility and not, you know, blowing stuff up. Additionally, she wanted it on a Thursday.

Partly, that was to honor George Washington, whose own proclamation had been Thursday-scheduled. The other part? To honor housewives. “Thursday is the most convenient day of the week for a domestic holiday,” Hale wrote in one of her dozens of Thanksgiving editorials. What with all of the washing on Mondays and ironing on Tuesdays, Thursdays seemed like the best opportunity for a homemaker to prepare a meal and still get to hang out with her visiting family.

Hale’s letters are credited with ultimately bending Lincoln’s ear and prompting him to standardize the Thursday feast. Had she opted for Wednesday or Sunday, the country might not know the joys of awkwardly long family gatherings or waiting in line at 5 a.m. on Black Friday for Best Buy’s deeply discounted television sets.

My guess is that more complete information, both on the origins of Thanksgiving as an annual observation and specifically on how it came to be observed on a Thursday each November, can be found in the 2009 book, Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday by James W. Baker, as well as in the book by Penny Colman mentioned in the Post article.

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Prolificity

Forgive the solipsism, but I just noticed that, as an intermittent blogger, I seldom create more blog posts than there are days in a month.

An exception is this month, in which I have published 34 entries (this will be number 35) in a month of 30 days.

One has to look back to June 2008 for the last time I did that (32 entries) and before that to October 2006 (also 32 entries). The last time before that was June 2005 (36 entries).

I came close in June 2007 (29 entries). What is it about June?

The winner for most posts in a month, however, is May 2005, with 43. That must have been a busy 31 days!

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D-Day Plus 23,741

Today is the 65th anniversary of D-Day.

On June 6, 1944, the combined forces of the United Nations -- mostly American, British, and Canadian units -- stormed the beaches of Normandy in an operation widely seen as the beginning of the end of World War II. Less than a year later, Nazi Germany had surrendered and Western Europe had been entirely liberated. (Eastern Europe, sadly, remained chained and oppressed for another 45 years.)

If you do the math, you'll realize that the youngest survivors of the D-Day invasion are today 83 years old -- perhaps 82, if they lied about their ages when they enlisted. Most are in their late 80s or early 90s. They have seen much history between then and now, but the history they made that day and the weeks that followed had a greater effect on the course of the 20th century than anything else they might have done.

Several of my blog-brothers and -sisters have posted tributes to the men of Operation Overlord. They deserve visits:

The Write Side of My Brain begins with a quotation from General Eisenhower's message to the troops.

The Movie-Watchers Guide to the Galaxy posts newsreel footage of the preparation for and execution of the invasion, with voiceover remembrances from D-Day veterans.

Blue Virginia has President Obama's remarks from earlier today.

A Blog for All has a lengthy post (including video) that references the two versions of General Eisenhower's address for after the invasion: one planned for a successful operation, the other planned for a disaster. Needless to say, the "disaster" script was never delivered.

SWAC Girl references a Washington Times editorial on the sacrifice of D-Day.

Millard Fillmore's Bathtub asks whether it is appropriate to fly a U.S. flag today.

Leslie Carbone posts the video of Ronald Reagan's speech on the 40th anniversary of D-Day. (Part II is here.)

The transcript of that moving speech by President Reagan can be found in the Great Speeches Collection at The History Place. An excerpt gives the flavor of his remarks:

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For 4 long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers -- the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machineguns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Twenty years later, minus one day, President Reagan died. Leslie Carbone remembers.

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Beefcake Update

Last October, I reported on a new calendar featuring Mormon men in various states of dishabille.

Called "Men on a Mission," it was designed to introduce people to the Mormon faith in a rather unconventional manner.

Now it turns out that the creator and marketer of the calendar, Chad Hardy, has been excommunicated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon church, that is).

According to the Daily Telegraph in London:

The creator of a calendar featuring pictures of bare-chested Mormon missionaries has been excommunicated after a disciplinary meeting with local church leaders in Las Vegas.

Chad Hardy, 31, said he accepted the decision and had "no ill feelings" towards the council of elders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"I felt like I spoke my truth," the Las Vegas-based life-long Mormon said. "Bottom line, they still felt the calendar is inappropriate and not the image that the church wants to have."

....Frank E Davie, leader of a group of Mormon congregations in the Las Vegas area, confirmed the 12-member council's decision but would not comment further.

Once excommunicated, a person can still attend services but is removed from official church rolls, prohibited from receiving the sacrament, entering church temples and performing church callings such as teaching or preaching during meetings.

An earlier report in the Las Vegas Sun noted the reasons Hardy was facing discipline from his church:

A lifetime member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Chad Hardy was summoned by letter to a Sunday meeting with a council of elders to discuss his "conduct unbecoming a member of the church."

The Sun's article suggests that Hardy achieved the sort of dialogue he was seeking to unfurl:

Blog entries on the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook show a range of reactions to Hardy's work. Some find it offensive and say it degrades the church by displaying missionaries as sex symbols, and that it contradicts church teachings about modest dress for all members.

Others praise the effort for rattling perceptions that Mormons are "stuffy." Some who identified themselves as younger Mormons said the calendar might make it easier for their non-Mormon friends to consider exploring the faith.

"It has created an interfaith dialogue," Hardy said. "People of all faiths have logged on and shared what they believe. They're talking about what's really important, not how bad it is that you took your shirt off."

Despite the excommunication, the 2009 "Men on a Mission" calendar has already been sent to the printers and will be ready for stuffing stockings this Christmas.

Today We Are All Bissextile

I bet you didn't know that.

Mormon Beefcake?

One of the more entertaining and touching movies of the "coming out" genre in recent years was Latter Days, which features Steve Sandvoss as Elder Aaron Davis, a Mormon missionary who, while on mission to Los Angeles, discovers his long-buried gay identity with the help of party-boy Christian Markelli (played by Wes Ramsey). The film also includes performances by the wonderful Mary Kay Place as Aaron's mother, up-and-coming art house favorite Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a fellow missionary, and the luminous Jacqueline Bisset as a restaurateur-cum-mother hen.

In his review of the movie, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote:

Is there a way in which the movie works? Yes, it works by delivering on its formula. We sense immediately that Davis and Christian are destined to be lovers, and so we watch patiently as the screenplay fabricates obstacles to their destiny. We identify to some degree with them because -- well, because we always tend to identify with likable characters in love stories. Maybe the fact that they're gay will help some homophobic audience members to understand homosexuality a little better, although whether they will attend the movie in the first place is a good question.

Latter Days is, more than anything else, a story about family -- both the family we're born with and the family we choose.

But Latter Days is not without its homoerotic titillation. A serious drama, it also has comic scenes and some very steamy love scenes, as well.

Latter Days' homoeroticism came to mind when I was reading the religion page of today's Washington Post. Yes, you read that right -- on the religion page. Beneath one article subtitled "As Their Numbers Dwindle, Christians In Iraq Feel Increasingly Vulnerable" and another headlined "Candidate's Religion Can Be Telling but Shouldn't Be the Whole Story" is one entitled "Calendar Shows Another Side of Mormons."

And what a side it is! In the lower right-hand corner of the page is a shirtless hunk straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. The photo comes from the cover of "Men on a Mission," a 2008 calendar that can be purchased at mormonsexposed.com. (That sounds like a web site for the schlock silent-film classic, Trapped By the Mormons or its campy 2005 remake, but in fact it also sells t-shirts with slogans like "I heart Mormon Boys" as well as the calendar and other items.)

In the article, distributed by Religion News Service, correspondent Lilly Fowler writes:

Hoping to debunk the popular image of Mormons as strait-laced corporate types, a steamy new "Men on a Mission" calendar features 12 former missionaries, each of them shirtless, sculpted and looking seductive.

There's Jonathan, looking like a Mitt Romney clone, and there he is again, sitting shirtless on a park bench with a sultry come-hither stare. And Shane, holding his Book of Mormon near the Las Vegas Strip and then looking like, well, he's the one going to strip.

Brandon Beckham, an actor and filmmaker who spent his two-year mission spreading the Mormon message in Mozambique, auditioned for a spot in the calendar after his agent told him about the project.

"It was kind of a different type of audition," said Beckham, now 32 and playing the role of Mr. August 2008 in a bathing suit.

Beckham, who was born and raised in Southern California, said that as a Mormon in the entertainment industry, he's used to having to make some tough decisions.

"I made up my mind a long time ago that I wouldn't engage in things I wouldn't approve of, that I wouldn't show my kids," he said.

But he said that after meeting the men behind the calendar, he felt good about the project and decided he could help change some of the misconceptions about Mormons.

They call it "bare chests and handsome faces as a conduit for change."

Having seen Barack Obama dressed skimpily on the beach, can Mitt Romney be far behind?

And will we now be encountering Jehovah's Witnesses as they hawk calendars door-to-door?