I want to start a new national holiday. I started it in my own family when our children were young. It is called March Forth and it’s a holiday based on a pun. Today is March Fourth but pun-wise it can also be March Forth!
What’s the point of the celebration, besides being the only date in the year that punnily makes a sentence? Step out! Be bold! Do something different! Risk looking foolish doing something good, something on behalf of someone else. My holiday, (hopefully someday everyone’s holiday) will be a day for positive action. (As I write this I’m listening to Stars and Stripes Forever, of course. What else?)
When our children were little we played marches and tromped around the house on March Fourth and had a little fun on a day when, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, the weather is often gray and dismal, cold and wet. It is a way to brighten a moment just when winter is seeming over long and spring too far away. And why not celebrate this special day? Invariably when I ask someone if he or she knows why today is my favorite day of the year, which most people answer, “It’s your birthday?” and I say, “Nope, it’s the only date of the year that makes a sentence,” and then wait a few seconds for the good-natured dawning recognition of the joke, I always get a smile.
Honestly! This is an idea whose time has come. A winner. A literary holiday! For now, until the national campaign gets underway, I’ll just keep wishing people I meet a happy March Forth on March Fourth. I’d love it if you’d do the same.
(I invite you to boldly take a peek at some other March Forth essays and Past March Fourth Greetings to our adult children and their families)
