Mom’s birthday fell on Election Day this year.Since I’m spending lots of time driving to visit Mom these days, I amused myself by figuring out that this happens every 6 years, but that every 12 years her birthday falls on a Presidential Election Day.
Good thing I’m a reference librarian, because when I consulted a Perpetual Calendar, I discovered I was wrong, COMPLETELY wrong! I hate being wrong. I think it’s the leap years that messed me up.
There is a pattern; November 4th falls on a Tuesday at these intervals: 11 years, 6 years, 5 years, 6 years, repeat. I think that makes sense but I won’t try to explain it.
So, it turns out that this is only the third time in her 83 years that her birthday has fallen on a Presidential Election Day. The first time was the year of my birth, 1952, when Eisenhower was elected. The second was in 1980 when Ronald Reagan came into office. Good thing I didn’t know this before now or I would have been even more nervous.
Why is election day on the Tuesday after the first Monday in No
vember?Sadly, Mom didn’t get to vote this year, because she’s been very sick for 8 weeks, and we didn’t think about getting her an absentee ballot.
Once it did cross my mind, it seemed unethical to encourage her to vote, since she's extremely confused from large quantities of pain medications.
I know who she was planning to vote for, and I am so glad she got her birthday wish.
Happy Birthday, Mom. Please get well soon!
2 comments:
Love these photos! And your Mom's present is a present to us all!
Oh yeah, and that's fine cause Mom loves to share! This morning I told her that she had another gift that had arrived overnight, and then explained, and her face lit up and she said something like "YAAAY!" I was thrilled, I was afraid she might have forgotten who Barack Obama was in the past 8 weeks.
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