Whether it's gridders or cagers, ink me up for old-time headlines

When I landed my first sports writer job at age 21, I was thrilled.

Not to get my name in the paper. Not to go to games for free. Not to tell people's stories.

I was thrilled about the chance to write headlines. More specifically, to write headline words.

"Nix" for cancel. "Tilt" for game. "Ink" for sign. "Bucs" for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Newspapers were a sandbox. This was going to be great! The kid who loved newspapers now got to mimic what he'd read growing up.

I loved headline words from a young age, reading news headlines about the "prexy" (president) and "the GOP" (Republican Party). I cherished headlines like "Tribe Thump Chisox" (Cleveland Indians beat Chicago White Sox). 

Imagine my excitement when I got to write headlines for the Eureka Times-Standard sports section.  It was an afternoon paper on weekdays, so I'd roll in before 6 a.m. a few days a week and lay out the sports section before heading to my college classes. What better way to start off a day than writing a headline that said "Bosox, Friars swap hurlers" (Boston Red Sox, San Diego Padres trade pitchers)?

And it wasn't just headlines.

I also could use sports phrases that had been a part of my newspaper experienc. I could call the track team "thinclads." I could write "harriers" while discussing the cross-country team. The football team was "gridders," the basketball team was "cagers" and the wrestling team was the "grapplers."

Of course, there was even more. A student of how metropolitan newspapers reported, the 1984 version of Brad sought ways to breathlessly write breaking news. I particularly enjoyed using the BIG STORY writing style: "Joe Blow will not return in 1985 as the Arcata High junior varsity wrestling coach, the Times-Standard learned late Tuesday." It was breathless! It was a scoop!

Of course, "the Times-Standard learned" about it when Coach Blow called in the results of his team's match and casually mentioned that he was not going to coach the following year.

But the "Times-Standard learned!" "late Tuesday!" It was fun!

Even as I became a veteran (I was a sports writer for two years in Eureka and 18 years in Fairfield before moving to the news side), I loved headline cliches and breathless reporting. As sports editor, I discouraged my staff from using them, but I enjoyed seeing them in a small-town newspaper (or even occasionally a bigger newspaper) while traveling.

We live in a world that's politically splintered. The polar ice caps are melting. We're vulnerable to pandemics. We don't know how to control artificial intelligence. The Dodgers are in contention every year. Gas prices aren't coming down. It's bad news after bad news after bad news.

If newspapers used the old-timey headline words, perhaps the world would seem like a better place.

Wouldn't you like to see headlines about a "gridiron clash" or the "prexy nixing" some legislation or a big free agent "inking a pact" with the Giants?

Well, the Daily Republic learned late Saturday that I would, too.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

What's the Michael Jordan of junk drawer items? Counting them down

You have a junk drawer and so did your parents. Your grandparents did, too (although it probably included World War II ration coupons, a mercury thermometer and castor oil).

The junk drawer is the place where you put items that you rarely use, but you might someday need. Scissors. Maybe a tape measure. Maybe an old stapler. Thumb tacks. The junk drawer is filled with things we rarely need, but when we need them, we need them.

Yours may be in the kitchen. It may be somewhere else. It may serve another purpose, too – perhaps a holding cell for bills or other mail.

The big question: What's the most critical item in your junk drawer? What is the Abraham Lincoln or Michael Jordan or Meryl Streep of junk drawer items?

Good thing you asked, because I have answers.

Like when I ranked kitchen appliances, pizzas, fictional holiday characters, fruits, office supplies and much more, I'm here to set the power rankings for junk drawer items. Counting down the top 10.

10. Paper clips. Best to have a variety. Big ones. Little ones. Maybe one of those oversized clips that can really pinch your fingers.

9. Flashlight. We have one on our mobile phones, but we still keep a flashlight in the junk drawer. Because  . . . maybe our phone won't work someday? Who knows, but we keep flashlights.

8. Rubber bands. Rarely needed, but crucial. The recommended practice is to have at least four or five scattered in the drawer.

7. Post-it notes/scratch paper. At some point, you need to write a note. Even for yourself. How else do you remind yourself to not forget something? Putting a note in your phone isn't as effective as a Post-it note on the front door.

6. Pens/pencils. When it's time for that note, you need a working pen or pencil. You actually need several, because most pens in your junk drawer have gone dry.

5. Scissors. Maybe these are too important for the junk drawer, but that's where most of us keep them. If you need scissors, what else are you going to use, a knife? Not unless you're Davy Crockett (although box cutters fit this category).

4. Tools, fasteners. A small screwdriver. A hex key or two. Some screws. A nail or two. This is the JV team for your toolbox, filled with things that don't quite make it to the big leagues.

3. Matches/lighters. Needed for birthday cakes candles, regular candles or to start a barbecue. Because it takes too long to start a fire another way.

2. Scotch tape. There's no replacement for this. If you run out of scotch tape, what are you going to do? Use duct tape to wrap a package? Glue it? Come on, man.

1. Batteries. The kings of the junk drawer because when we need them, it's urgent. For remote controls. Fire and/or smoke alarms. Or insulin pumps. And good luck getting that flashlight in the drawer to work without some batteries.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Your dinner time shows whether you are a true American

You probably eat dinner around the same time each night and there's probably a reason for it.

It might start during the first commercial break of the 5:30 p.m. episode of "Shark Tank." It might be 30 minutes after you arrive home from work. It might be 12 hours after you got out of bed to start your day. It might be when the microwave finally finishes cooking those Hot Pockets you put in a 6 p.m.

It's probably not that exact, but most of us have a general dinner time. Now have data that determines whether we are normal or some sort of freak who should close our curtains so we don't scare the neighbors with our peculiar dinner time. 

A guy named Nathan Yau has a fascinating blog called FlowingData, where he charts various statistics in interesting ways (home run distance in different ballparks, what Americans drink, how smoke from Canadian wildfires travels across the U.S.). Recently, he used data from the American Time Use Survey (who knew there was such a thing?) to track when we eat dinner.

Broadly, data showed that most American households eat dinner between 5:07 p.m. and 8:19 p.m. Oh, sure, that's pretty general. But want specifics?

According to Yau, the peak time – the period at which the highest number of households are eating dinner – is 6:19 p.m.

That's right. If you're eating dinner at 6:19 p.m., you're a normal American. And by "normal American," I mean a Californian since that's the peak time in the Golden State. We're the only state whose peak time coincides with the national peak, again proving that we're the most American of Americans, something made clear by the fact that we have Hollywood and Disneyland and Bakersfield.

Californians are normal, eating at a reasonable time (presuming dinner time is around 20 minutes, that means our start time is from 5:59 to 6:19 p.m.). Other states are pretty close to the median: Of the 50 states, 41 hit peak dinner time within 20 minutes of the golden (state) time of 6:19 p.m. The other nine, plus the District of Columbia? Early and late-eating freaks – but I think I know why, although I'm too lazy to do the research.

First, the two states that are really early. 

In Pennsylvania, peak dinner time is 5:37 p.m., which is presumably attributable to the large Amish population not using electricity and having to feed their oxen at 6 p.m. (those are guesses. I don't know how many Amish actually live in Pennsylvania, I'm not sure whether they own oxen nor whether they use electricity).

The other early state is Maine, where people have peak dinner time at 5:40 p.m. That's attributable to the sun going down at 12:30 p.m. every day from Halloween until April 1 (that may not be accurate either).

People in four states, plus the District of Columbia, eat at 7 p.m. or later. Again, there are reasons that they're such freaks.

The latest-eating residents are those in D.C. because they all work for the federal government and presumably have to meet lobbyists for dinner. Lobbyists are allegedly late eaters.

The four states where peak dinner time is 7 p.m. or later are Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas – states that are connected.

You may not find this in "history" books, but I've heard that when the South surrendered after the Civil War, they agreed to wait until Northerners were done eating dinner before they started.

It seems weird now, but in 1865, it made sense. Trust me: I eat dinner at 6:19 p.m. every night. All Americans who eat at dramatically different times have excuses, albeit strange ones.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

The semi-definitive list of the columns of lists I've written

Over the years, I've ranked many things. Many dumb things.

So many things, that it makes sense to keep them in one place, so if you, dear reader, ever have a question about (for instance) how to rank household furniture, you can look here.

A non-exhaustive list of my power rankings over the years:

Bay Area sports owners

Current commercial jingles

Bay Area sports figures (2025)

Most disappointing foods

Best months

Types of tape

Christmas traditions

Best leftover foods

Fingers

Most forgettable teams in major sports

Junk drawer items

Types of pizzas

Fictional holiday figures

Thanksgiving foods

Current Bay Area sports figures (2022)

Pieces of household furniture

Bay Area sports dynasties

Fruits

Office supplies

Bay Area sports figures (2020)

Kitchen appliances

Bay Area sports decades

Christmas songs

Days of the week

Minor U.S. holidays

Most hated Bay Area athletes

Solano County's seasons

Punctuation marks

Decades since 1960s

Generations

Modern inventions

Holidays

Best Bay Area sports figures (2014)

Biggest Bay Area sports star (2013)

Months

Greatest Warriors (2012)

Best Bay Area sports figures (2011)

Life lesson comes from Antwerp's tough nest-building birds

The nest built by the tough birds of Antwerp (Photo by Alexander Schippers).

Everyone knows birds are creative when building nests. They'll use almost anything – paper, twigs, dog hair, human hair, Bigfoot hair, leaves, garbage, a copy of TV Guide from Dec. 17, 1977, with the cast of "One Day at a Time" on the cover – to get the structure they want. And birds will be persistent once they find a good place.

At our house, Mrs. Brad resorted to stuffing balls of aluminum foil in the eaves where our neighborhood birds consistently kept trying to build a nest. A few times, I found the foil balls on the ground and wondered (assumed?) that the birds had hired a subcontractor to pull them out so they could build there.

Birds are tough: Anyone who has had a seagull swipe their food or come face-to-face with a turkey or tried to fool a roadrunner with an explosive device purchased from the Acme Co. knows this.

But birds in Antwerp recently took it to another level. They didn't just pull out foil balls. They did the equivalent of what your older sibling did (grabbing your arm and making you hit yourself, then asking you why you were hitting yourself. Although that may just be a flashback that would be better told in a counseling session.)

Anyway, those Antwerp birds. Those tough, rough, fearless Antwerp birds, specifically Eurasian magpies. They're the toughest birds in the world now. They are the Mike Tyson of birds.

Because they built the toughest nest in the history of nests.

Researchers from two natural history museums in Belgium – which all museum experts know are the Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the Natural History Museum Rotterdam – discovered the remarkable nests, according to a press release issued by Naturalis.

First some background: Think about anti-nesting spikes that people and municipalities use to keep birds from building nests. I'm talking about the spikes that make it impossible for birds to get comfortable and build a home. That's the only purpose of the nests. They're like aluminum foil balls, but meaner and more durable.

Now the twist: A couple of Antwerp magpies took those spikes – about 1,500 of them – and built a nest with them.

Yes!

They took the thing designed to prevent them from building a nest and used it to build the baddest, coolest, toughest nest in Antwerp. These birds have a metal nests!

The nest isn't solely made out of the spikes: The birds also used regular nest stuff (twigs, Bigfoot hair, leaves, that TV guide from 1977, marble kitchen counters), too. But experts estimate that the birds pulled about 150 feet of the pins to get enough for their punk nest. Even better, the magpies – who always build a "roof" on their nests to keep predators away – used spikes for that reason: To keep other birds away. Remarkable.

Apparently, this is extreme, but not unprecedented.

An article in the scientific journal Deinsea describes other magpie nests made with anti-bird spikes, as well as barbed wire and knitting needles.

Previous articles reported on the use of face masks and plastic plants in bird nests. Also used: condoms, fireworks, cocaine wraps, sunglasses and windshield wipers.

Cool and tough. The sunglasses nests would be pretty tough looking.

But nobody beats those Antwerp birds, making nests out of anti-nesting spikes.

It's time to update the old lemons-lemonade saying to this: When life gives you anti-nesting spikes, make a nest out of them.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

 

 

 

Extraction of groundwater is harming Earth . . . and dart-throwing

If it feels like you're more likely to stumble now than a few decades ago, there's a reason: The Earth's tilt is shifting.

Really.

The reason? We're sucking out so much groundwater that the globe is leaning to the east at a rate of about 1.7 inches per year. Talk about East Coast bias!

According to a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in mid-June, our constant extraction of groundwater has shifted the axis on which Earth rotates. So when you miscalculate while stepping off the curb and stumble, it's not your fault. It's the fault of water hogs. They're really pumping it out!

A CNN report on the study included this: "Between 1993 and 2010, the period examined in the study, humans extracted more than 2,150 gigatons of groundwater from inside Earth, mostly in western North America and northwestern India, according to estimates published in 2010."

I suspect the term "gigaton" is made up, but that seems like a lot. And it's . . . wait, what? "Mostly in western North America?" That's, that's, that's . . . that's us!

We're in western North America! We're making the Earth tilt!

Of course, you might be able to explain the tilt otherwise. The Earth spins on its north-south axis at about 1,000 mph, which explains why your ears sometimes pop and you get carsick while sitting on a couch (or are both those just me?). Plenty of things can affect the rotation of the Earth: Changes in glaciers, changes in air pressure, changes in attitude, changes in latitude, as Jimmy Buffet fans can attest.

However, this one seems significant and tough to change, since it's not like humans are extracting water from the top layer of the Earth's crust for giggles. We need water for food, we need water to survive. Can you imagine making Ramen, for instance, without water? Or making coffee without water? I'm sure there are other uses of water, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Oh yeah – imagine a world where you can't make Tang. Nightmarish.

According to the study, this has been going on for a while. Redistributing groundwater has shifted the rotational axis by more than 31 inches in less than 20 years, according to models created by the study's authors. Thirty-one inches! No wonder it's harder to shoot a basketball now than it was in the 1990s: The hoop has moved nearly three feet. No wonder we're so terrible at darts now: The board is 31 inches to the east! (the science behind my claims has not been verified by independent sources).

There are important long-term effects of changing the angle of the Earth, such as changes from season to season (for instance, how we experience summer). And the aforementioned dart throwing.

Since we're taking too much water out of the Earth, I propose simple solution: We just pump more back in.

Seriously. Let's all turn on our sprinklers and let the water soak into the Earth. We can return things to their natural state and improve our dart-throwing and basketball-shooting at the same time.

Where will we get this water? Simple: Just turn on the sprinklers. We can save the future of Ramen, Tang, dart-throwing and return the Earth to its normal axis.

You're welcome, Earth.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

How AM radio shaped me: NBA from Seattle, MLB from Anaheim, music from Portland

In late elementary school and junior high, my nighttime ritual was simple: I'd go to bed, turn on my Panasonic radio and begin searching for sports.

I lived in Humboldt County, about five hours north of San Francisco and seven hours south of Portland. Other than Giants and 49ers games broadcast on a Eureka radio station, there was no sports on local radio. We got two TV stations (no cable for my family), so I'd see national sports broadcasts on weekends only.

Laying in bed, I would find AM radio stations from far-off cities and tune in. Play-by-play of the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers and Seattle SuperSonics. Baseball games involving the Oakland A's, Seattle Mariners, California Angels and even the hated Los Angeles Dodgers. University of Southern California football and University of San Francisco basketball. The Denver Bears, then the top minor-league baseball affiliate of the Montreal Expos. Even the Bay Area Golden Gaters of World Team Tennis had games broadcast on a radio station I could pick up.

Those cities were hundreds – sometimes thousands – of miles from my bedroom, yet I could listen in. The broadcasts faded in and out, but I could hear them.

I also listened to a Portland station play the most-requested of the day every night. I listened to Ronn Owens host his talk show on San Francisco's KGO radio, unaware that I was hearing the early stages of arguably the greatest local talk show host career in radio history.

Those were – for me, at least – the glory days of AM radio.

I wrote a week ago about car manufacturers removing AM radio from many models. It made me sad because I loved AM radio. As a kid, it was my window to the rest of the world.

The AM signal travels farther (and has lower sound quality) than FM radio. Thus I could hear stations in Denver or Salt Lake City or Los Angeles or Seattle.

In 2023, it seems quaint. It sounds like how when old people used to talk about going to silent movies. In the internet era, when you can stream almost anything to your phone, the idea of a 13-year-old searching the radio band for a far-away baseball or NBA game seems ancient.

Yet AM radio had an impact. My favorite NBA team was the Sonics, not the Warriors (whose broadcasts I couldn't find). My dream job was being the play-by-play announcer for the Giants. My musical tastes were cemented by listening to the top-40 station in Portland playing the most-requested songs every night (which eliminated the chance for me to ever like hard rock).

AM radio is fading. Why listen to talk radio when you can hear a podcast? Why listen to static-filled music when you can stream it to your phone or car? Why find a distant radio station for baseball when the MLB app has all the broadcasts?

I don't believe childhood was better in the 1970s than it is now. I don't believe technology is ruining the world. I don't believe we were better off without the internet.

I just know I still have fond memories of listening to Bob Blackburn broadcasting Sonics games on KOMO radio and Bob Clarke presenting the most required songs of the day on KEX radio from Portland. In my childhood, AM radio brought the world outside my small town to my bedroom every night.

Decades from now, someone will talk about how obscure podcasts and TikTok shaped their childhood and it will seem similarly old-timey.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

AM radio in cars may soon be a thing of the past

Another staple of Americana could soon go away, joining the trash compactor, mustard-yellow appliances, Mary Tyler Moore, cars with stick shifts and a TV universe with just three networks.

Many car manufacturers will no longer offer AM radio, limiting their audio options to FM, satellite radio and streaming apps.

The first blow was struck by electric car manufacturers, partially because electric motors interfere with AM radio signals. Tesla, Mazda, Volkswagen, BMW and other electric car manufacturers removed AM from some models over the past few years and it kind of makes sense: There is a constant buzz while listening to AM radio when driving an electric car. At least that's my experience: When we bought our first Prius about 15 years ago, I couldn't listen to Giants games (available then only on AM radio) or most talk radio. It was FM or CDs or (later) streaming via Bluetooth.

So AM radio doesn't work well with electric cars (although that seems like it's fixable, right? They figured out how to make a car run on electricity, but can't they get it to stop interfering with the AM signal? Come on, man). But the snuffing out of AM radios in cars won't stop there.

A May article in the Detroit Free Press revealed that Ford would eliminate AM radios from its fleet. Next year.

My first thought was it was Ford's payback for the old AM radio jingle of, "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet." Revenge is a dish best-served cold.

AM radio is a part of our history. Radio and cars emerged around the same time and by the 1940s, about 40% of cars had radios. Within a few decades, virtually every car had an AM radio. Some had FM, some had cassette (or 8-track) players, but all had AM.

Car AM radios were how we heard traffic reports and news and music. "Morning drive time" and "evening drive time" were a crucial part of the radio universe – formats built around the fact that people were driving to or from work while listening to the radio. AM radio stations dominated ratings until at least the turn of the 21st century (KGO radio, an AM powerhouse, was the Bay Area's top-rated radio station from 1978-2008. Thirty years!).

With the emergence of FM radio (with much better sound), music moved away and AM stations became the world of talk radio, sports, religious and non-English-speaking radio. The format has increasingly struggled to keep listeners.

But . . . auto manufacturers who elect to drop it are finding resistance. There are still 4,000 AM radio stations in the U.S. and they emphasize that AM radio remains the front line of the Emergency Alert system, which seems an old-timey reason, but maybe it's good enough.  Anyway, there were protests. And they worked: In the days following that report that Ford would discontinue AM radios in many models, elected officials protested the move. Ultimately, Ford relented and said AM radios will be part of its entire fleet in 2024.

But the first shot was fired. AM radio's decline continues. We're seeing the beginning of the end.

Someday soon, we'll look back on AM radio like we do celebrity-hosted TV variety shows and "The Lone Ranger" on radio and pre-Starbucks coffee shops. It already is something that we have warm memories of, but don't use anymore.

AM radios will still be in many cars for a while, but is anyone listening?

I hope so, if only for our memories.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Mrs. Brad and I catch up with the world by finally getting COVID

It took a while, but we finally caught up.

In the same way Mrs. Brad and I were late to cell phones, using streaming-only for Netflix and watching "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad," we were late to COVID.

By the time we were hit with the pandemic-causing virus in mid-June, three years had passed since our first friends got sick. Two years had passed since masks largely disappeared from public places.

No one worries about COVID anymore. We're vaccinated multiple times. Most people have had the virus. COVID is so 2021.

Mrs. Brad and me getting COVID in 2023 was like falling in love with "Saturday Night Fever" in 1981 after everyone else was sick of Bee Gees music. We had Saturday Night Fever when everyone else had Stars on 45 Mania. (That is the greatest reference you'll see this year to 1981 pop culture.)

We returned from a brief work-related trip to Washington, D.C. feeling great. I got sick and tested positive for COVID-19 two days later. She followed shortly three days after me.

Illnesses are always worse for Mrs. Brad than me, so it was unsurprising that her symptoms – cough, fever, headaches, tiredness – were worse. But since I'm a Type 1 diabetic, I'm considered at risk, so my doctors put me on medication while she soldiered through.

The good news? My symptoms were mild. The bad news? I got "rebound COVID," and tested positive again after going through an entire isolation/masking/testing cycle. It meant a second week of isolation and wearing a mask.

Two weeks of isolation. I felt like I was in prison – if prison involved working from the kitchen table, watching TV and taking naps every afternoon on the deck. Still, I didn't leave our house for six days, meaning a lot of TV and naps and reading and naps.

Unlike the darkest COVID days of March and April 2020, we were doing this alone, which was good news and bad news:

The bad news was that we didn't have friends going through the same thing with whom to commiserate.

The good news was that all sports continued: We watched a lot of baseball and cycling and Formula 1 and even some USFL football. We watched a lot of Netflix and "Shark Tank."

The bad news was we couldn't even play games (first because Mrs. Brad was afraid of infection, then because she was too sick to play, then because my doctor advised me that my rebound COVID was possibly contagious to Mrs. Brad again).

The good news was we survived, of course.

Nearly everyone survives COVID now, which is why it's no longer such a big thing. We were appreciative of our vaccines. We were grateful for the advances made over three-plus years. We were reminded how difficult it can be to be sick and isolated and unable to leave your house.

But we also joined the majority. We're now part of between 52% and 82% of Americans (depending on your source) who have had COVID.

Like listening to "Stars on 45" on repeat, it's not very pleasant.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

America's little-known history shows today is really the Fourth of July (kind of)

If we practiced a facts-based celebration of history, today would be Independence Day.

Yep, we should celebrate the Fourth of July on July 2 (or something like that. I'm starting to get confused), because the Continental Congress actually declared independence from Britain on July 2, 1776.

Yes. July 2, not July 4.

The reason for the two-day mistake (which is the working title of a country music song I'm writing) is that the authors of the Declaration of Independence postdated their document like they were writing a postdated check. They voted on the resolution for independence July 2 and "ratified the text" July 4.

The actual reason for the delay is lost to history. One theory is that the absence of laptops, electric typewriters, manual typewriters, ditto paper or telegrams forced them to wait. Some scholars believe that the lack of affordable cable TV for early Americans made C-SPAN unavailable for most residents, so the Founding Fathers were forced to wait.

The "why" is unclear, but the "what" is obvious: They voted for independence July 2, and they dated the document July 4.  And nobody signed the Declaration until Aug. 2, 1776, according to the National Archives.

It turns out that the Fourth of July should really be the Second of July (again, I may be slightly confused between the date and the holiday).

I'm not here to overthrow Independence Day. I don't suggest we go to the parade in Fairfield, the waterfront in Suisun City, set off fireworks and eat hot dogs on July 2 (although the waterfront isn't the worst idea, right? And your crazy neighbors will set off fireworks today).

We can keep the Fourth of July on July 4, because details behind holidays sometimes change as we get more information, but we don't need to eliminate the holidays or even change the way or time we commemorate them.

For instance . . .

People often act as if they're winning an argument when they say Jesus Christ likely wasn't born on Christmas day, as if Dec. 25 is mentioned in the Bible and to admit that the date is just a commemoration would discredit Christianity. The specifics of the date pale in comparison to what it commemorates.

Same thing with Thanksgiving. It's now widely accepted that the version of the first Thanksgiving that I learned in school – Pilgrims joining happy Native Americans around a table to enjoy turkey and dressing after watching NFL games in Detroit and Dallas – was wrong. The original Thanksgiving is more about a short-lived peace, with a dark cloud of disease and upcoming conflicts that would wipe out civilizations. However, we can still celebrate a holiday of being thankful and gathering with friends and family and watching the Lions and Cowboys (the only part of the first Thanksgiving story that is true).

Same thing with Columbus Day (the real one, Oct. 12), which people historically considered as the day Christopher Columbus went ashore in the Bahamas. We now know that he brought European colonization, disease, enslavement and genocide to people who were already living in the Americas and would be surprised to hear the land had just been "discovered." The pushback against Columbus in recent decades led to the growing commemoration of Indigenous People's Day on or around Oct. 12, which also happens to be my birthday. Columbus Day? Indigenous People's Day? Either is fine, as long as it's celebrated with a birthday cake at my house.

Which somehow brings us back to today and the lesson of that first Independence Day. The takeaway is that today is July 2, which is our nation's 247th birthday.

That means both today and Tuesday are the Fourth of July. Kind of.

Reach Brad Stanhope at BradStanhope@outlook.com.