We just passed New Year's Day, which doesn't seem like the start of a year, but just as a continuation of winter. Other than Big Calendar, the industry that makes its money by selling 12-month wall posters at Christmas, who thinks a new year should start a week after Christmas? That's wrong.
Similarly, we all consider the first two weeks of June "summer": Kids are getting out of school, Memorial Day is behind us, it's closing on 100 degrees.
It's still spring, technically.
The whole calendar is a mess and I have a plan to fix it.
Sure, it requires moving around what we consider "seasons" and it ignores the ideas of solstices and equinoxes (both of which I believe are only observed by witches), but it reflects what's actually already there. The Stanhope Calendar Plan reflects the real way we consider seasons.
Unless you're a member of the Flat Earth Society, you have to realize that it's time for change. Open your mind and get ready to be convinced.
In my plan:
Winter is Nov. 1 through the end of February. Sure, it's four months, but so what? It's winter! We consider it winter once we get past Halloween and by the time March rolls around, baseball teams are in spring training. It's not winter training, it's spring training. Winter ends March 1! My plan recognizes that the coldest weather (in the northern hemisphere ) occurs in the winter.
Spring is March 1 until the Thursday before Memorial Day. That's when we have crazy weather, it gets warmer and it's the time that we make the transition from winter to summer. Spring starts when March starts. And Memorial Day weekend goes from "the unofficial start of summer" to the official start of summer.
Summer is Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. Summer is the season when the weather is warm, kids are out of school and people take "summer vacations." Does it still feel like summer in mid-September? No. Because it isn't summer anymore. It's fall (see next entry). I would also require schools to be on vacation during this period. No school in summer.
Fall is the day after Labor Day through the end of October. It's the shortest season (and I'd be willing to negotiate and let fall extend until after Thanksgiving if required in the agreement with Big Calendar), but that's fall. School's back in. Football starts. Leaves fall. New shows start on network TV.
One more change is that New Year's Day moves from Jan. 1 to March 1.
Isn't that a more logical start of the year? It's the start of spring, when things are getting green, people are moving outside and optimism returns after the long (four-month) winter. As a bonus, it moves the holiday away from Christmas and gives workers a day off when we could use it more. The last day of February (the 29th, this year) becomes New Year's Eve. We start a new year and a new season at the same time.
My conclusion: The Byrds had it right when they quoted the Bible five decades ago: To everything there is a season. And our calendar has the seasons all messed up.
Under the Stanhope Calendar Plan, we get accurate seasons and a New Year's Day that reflects reality.
Now back to an actual four-month winter of discontent with the current calendar system.
Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.
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