A columnist’s plight
Don Coldsmith
Monday, January 29, 2007
I DON’T KNOW about how other columnists go at the job. I’ve developed a sort of routine. I’ve now written more than 1,800 of these columns over the past 35 years.
I’ve mentioned earlier why it’s called “Horsin’ Around.” Originally, it was to have been totally about horses, but there are a lot of changes since 1971. I’ve explained this occasionally. I try to stay ahead, because I hate to come down to a deadline with no ideas.
Obviously, a weekly column will require 52 offerings per year. Sometimes news is happening so fast that it’s really difficult to be current.
Sometimes, of course, a column will reflect a seasonal event, such as Christmas, Easter, Independence Day and others. What columnists need is a different slant of some kind. A fresh idea, maybe.
For a long time, I’ve dated Horsin’ Around on Mondays for each “release date.” Several of the papers who carry it publish on Mondays, which works out well. If, for instance, a paper which publishes on Wednesdays used it, the Monday release date has passed and there’s no problem.
A great many newspapers and columnists were caught in a bind this season, particularly weeklies who publish on Mondays. Two major holidays were involved, Christmas on the 25th, and New Year’s Day on January 1.
This also brings in another factor. A year has 12 months, of course, but several are as much as three days longer than others and vary from year to year in the bargain. Every year, four of our months will have FIVE Mondays, purely the result of a mixed time-keeping heritage, involving several different cultures, civilizations, religions and calendars.
“Sabbath,” (Jewish) has been designated as beginning on various days. Seventh-day Adventist Christians have adopted theirs. Other Christians have various ideas. But it gets even more complicated. There are a number of Biblical references to some event which happened, for example, “early on the morning of the third day . . .”
But where do we start the count? That one isn’t too hard, of course, but just for the interest and maybe to learn a little, let’s look at our week and how our days are labeled. I stumbled across some surprises during research for a book on Vikings a few years ago (RUNESTONE, in case you’re interested).
Sunday — Many cultures have worshiped the Sun and/or a Sun God. Important since Creation.
Monday — The Moon — maybe the wife or help-mate of Sun, depending on interpretation.
Tuesday — Named for Tiu, the Norse god of war, “Tiu’s day.”
Wednesday — Named for Woden, father of all the Norse gods — “Woden’s Day.”
Thursday — Thor’s Day — everybody knows about the big guy with the hammer. Thor, god of thunder.
Friday — Named for Frig, the Norse goddess of love. “Frig’s Day.” (Our culture has only recognized the importance of women a generation ago. Who’s primitive now?)
Saturday — This begins Sabbath for Jewish and Seventh-day Adventists. This is the only ROMAN deity, for whom a day is named. “Saturn’s Day.”
It is amazing to me that our designation of days of the week, with all of the implied blasphemy, actually survived the overwhelming influence of Christianity. The Church’s authorities were still locked into believing in a flat earth until a few generations ago. Some sects still do, I’m told.
There’s a rule of thumb which advises that a columnist should avoid certain topics. Religion, politics and motherhood top the list.
It appears that I’ve broken every rule in the past few weeks. Yet, I still teach a Methodist Sunday school class; I still think we need to carefully watch politics. I still see efforts to insist that we should be a “Christian Nation.” That would be a violation of the Constitution, of course. The very same fundamentalist insistence on that point is the very reason for the phrase, “Worship as we please,” to admit OTHER religions and beliefs to a free-thinking nation.
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.