Columbus Day

[Karen]

Just out of curiosity, how many of you Pet Talkers get Columbus Day off? I even forgot it was a "holiday" today until I checked the mail (none) and tried to call a doctor's office (closed) and listened to their message. I have never gotten it off, even when I worked for other people!

This being the Boston area, there are often big doings in the Italians neighborhoods for the day, of course! I just didn't happen to venture through any of them today, but it was cool and feeling quite October-like today!

And of course I know it is no longer politically correct in some quarters to celebrate it, given everything that happened afterwards, the damage to native peoples, etc., but I hardly think all that is the fault of one guy who dared to push the limits.

[Grace]

When I was growing up, Columbus Day was on October 12th - not a minute earlier or later. If it was on a Tuesday, we got that day off school. If it was on a Saturday - well, we already had Saturdays off.

I can't understand why it is being celebrated today - if they waited until Friday, people could still get a long weekend

[phesina]

I somehow had the idea it was no longer observed as an "official" holiday, what with the lack of joy over the occasion for the Native Americans.. but there was no mail delivery today, so I guess it still is.

Just like you, Gretchen, back in "my day" the holidays were observed on whatever the actual date of the occasion was. that was before many of them started to become excuses for long weekends.

[Karen]

When I was growing up, Columbus Day was on October 12th - not a minute earlier or later. If it was on a Tuesday, we got that day off school. If it was on a Saturday - well, we already had Saturdays off.

I can't understand why it is being celebrated today - if they waited until Friday, people could still get a long weekend

Retailers push for "Monday" holidays, to have the excuse for sales, and big organizations and corporations prefer a standardized 'system" instead of holidays on seemingly random days of the week that keeping it to a particular date would mean. It's all that corporate lobbying, I suspect. The last company I worked for said we could take either Columbus Day or Veteran's Day off, but in reality, didn't hold to it.

And in New England, of course, much of the tourist industry banks on leaf-peepers making a holiday of it, and roads North tend to be rather clogged as a result. This has nothing to do with when the foliage is really at its peak, and where, as it doesn't have anything to do with arbitrary dates on a calendar, rather temperature, rainfall, and climate conditions!

[Freedom]

I worked in banking, but with the stock markets, so most of us in my dept had to work as the markets were open.

I saw this on someone's FB page and was rather taken aback by the posting:
Happy "rape, torture & pillage
an indigenous people" day.

I don't think that was Columbus, I think that was a different group and many years later???

[Grace]

I worked in banking, but with the stock markets, so most of us in my dept had to work as the markets were open.

I saw this on someone's FB page and was rather taken aback by the posting:
Happy "rape, torture & pillage
an indigenous people" day.

I don't think that was Columbus, I think that was a different group and many years later???

Sandie, I think they do refer to Columbus that way. I went looking and found this - http://http://racerelations.about.com/od/historyofracerelations/a/The-Argument-Against-Columbus-Day.htm

[Karen]

And it is every bit as much an over-generalization as can be. To lay the sins of hundreds at the feet of one man is just plain willful ignorance.

(Mind you, I theoretically am part Native American on one side, but it was just a family story from a few generations back, no paperwork to prove it. I am also part lots of other nationalities - [Swedish, English, Norman French, Irish, Scottish, etc., etc.,] so I am a genuine American Mutt when it comes right down to it.)

And if one studies the history of the indigenous peoples before the "Europeans" arrived for the biggest wave of migration, one realizes that certain groups wiped each other out long before "white" people arrived.

It is a complicated issue, no doubt.

[mrspunkysmom]

And it is every bit as much an over-generalization as can be. To lay the sins of hundreds at the feet of one man is just plain willful ignorance.

(Mind you, I theoretically am part Native American on one side, but it was just a family story from a few generations back, no paperwork to prove it. I am also part lots of other nationalities - [Swedish, English, Norman French, Irish, Scottish, etc., etc.,] so I am a genuine American Mutt when it comes right down to it.)

And if one studies the history of the indigenous peoples before the "Europeans" arrived for the biggest wave of migration, one realizes that certain groups wiped each other out long before "white" people arrived.

It is a complicated issue, no doubt.

Amen, sister.

I am part Native American and am on the rolls. My dad was German and Indian. I am also Norwegian and German Jew on my mom's side. Maybe a few other things thrown in for good measure. Oddly enough with all that dark skin, I have blonde hair and lighter skin. SO did dad. My brothers and mother are much darker hued. I can actually trace back my father's side to colonial times before the revolutionary war. Indian and German. Mom's side is a little murkier.

I don't hold Columbus at fault. He did what they did back then. It was their mandate. It wasn't right, but there it is. What our white gov't did to Indians in the 19th Century was probably more damaging to the Indian nations.

Exploration is necessary for a society. Perhaps we'll get better at at.

You do have to admit he was brave to travel that longitudinal line until he found land. They did have latitude coordinates back then, but not for sailing.

History of Longitude.

[Alysser]

Day off? Never!

We got stuck with everyone else's mutts till today at work, since it was a holiday weekend. Lotsa pups got picked up today though!

I also had school...blah :P

[Steve Arnold]

Except for no mail, for everyone else it was business as usual. I don't think there was anything special at all to observe it here.

[cassiesmom]

The only time I had it off was when I worked for a company that had a contract with the state, so we got all the recognized state holidays off. We would be doubly busy the next day, though.