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| The International Date Line |
While I was growing up, my mother was known for using interesting turns of phrase. She would talk about the "oneth of the month" (the first day of the month). She and my father both used Spoonerisms deliberately, so we saved Chublip Stamps instead of Blue Chip Stamps and ate chotato pips instead of everyday potato chips. One of my favorites, though, was my mother threatening to knock us into the second Tuesday of next week when we were being, um, precocious. But, of course, there is no second Tuesday of the week.
Until there was!
When my family moved to Australia in 1971, we flew on a Pan Am 747 and crossed over the International Date Line. When we did that, the day we lost was a Tuesday.
When we returned to the United States in 1973, we took a Greek cruise ship, and of course we had to cross the International Date Line again. On that trip across the date line, we happened to repeat a Tuesday. So not only did we make up for the Tuesday we lost, we finally had the second Tuesday of next week!
And yes, we gave my mother a bunch of crap about all the times she had said that to us. She had somehow finally succeeded in knocking us into the second Tuesday of next week.
Unfortunately, my parents have both passed away, and neither my brother nor I remember the specific Tuesday we repeated. But we know we came back in March, and the Tuesdays in March 1973 were 6, 13, 20, and 27. So I picked today to write about it.
And I am pretty sure my mother would love the fact that I still remember.
