Now every dog can truly have its day

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Dogs used to be the only ones guaranteed to have their day, but no longer – because there’s an American website that chronicles that fact that there really is a day out there for almost everyone.

This Saturday – as every Scotsman with a kilt will be only too happy to tell you – is Robert Burns Day, but you may not know that this Friday offers you a choice of celebrations between National Compliment Day, National Peanut Butter Day or Beer Can Appreciation Day.

National Compliment Day was created in 1998 by two New Hampshire women Kathy Chamberlin and Debby Hoffman, with the intention of seeing how many sincere compliments you can give throughout the day. Compliments are kind of like smiles, when you give one you are almost sure to receive one in return.

It’s fair to say you’ll smile a lot more if you fully embrace Beer Can Appreciation Day, which might also give you an early start in advance of Sunday’s celebration, which is Spouse’s Day.

There are those who might argue that, given the way some people wreck the joint on our one national day of celebration on March 17, the last thing we need is another reason to kick off a party, but some of these annual events are rather sedate affairs.

Take next week, for example, when you can look forward to Data Privacy Day on Tuesday, National Puzzle Day on Wednesday and Inspire Your Heart with Art Day, which falls on the Friday.

All of this – and a calendar for the rest of the year – is documented on the National Whatever Day website, which also points out that we’ve just missed Peculiar People Day which fell last Friday.

This, however, is not quite what it seems because the Peculiar People Society is an offshoot of the Methodists whose members preached a particularly puritanical former of Christianity back in nineteenth century Britain.

The Peculiar People did not seek immediate medical care in cases of sickness, instead relying on prayer as an act of faith.

But refusing medical care led to some parents being imprisoned after a 1910 diphtheria outbreak in Essex, and like all good sects there was a split between the ‘Old Peculiars’, who still rebuffed medicine, and the ‘New Peculiars’, who somewhat reluctantly condoned it.

The split healed in the 1930s, when in general the New Peculiar position prevailed. During the two World Wars, some Peculiar People were conscientious objectors, believing as they still do that war is contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Church membership had peaked in the 1850s with 43 chapels, but it declined until 1956, when the Peculiar People changed their name to the less conspicuous Union of Evangelical Churches. The movement continues with regular worship at 16 remaining chapels in Essex and London.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.