Tax Day. Jackie Robinson Day. Earworm Day?

Today should be Tax Day. But, thanks to Emancipation Day, it’s not.

I wasn’t familiar with Emancipation Day because it’s only celebrated in Washington, DC. The actual day is April 16, but when that day falls on a Saturday, the observance is on Friday, making today a holiday in DC. And putting off Tax Day until Monday. Unless you’re fortunate enough to live in Massachusetts, where, on Monday, we’re celebrating Patriots Day. Thus, our taxes aren’t due until April 19th. Except for estimated taxes, which, because they’re sent to an IRS facility outside of Massachusetts are, in fact, due Monday. That’s Federal estimates. State ones, of course, aren’t due until Tuesday, since Monday, after all is a real holiday here. Got that? (That old bureaucratic magic…)

Up until this year, I had no reason to concern myself with the filing date, as I always got my taxes done in plenty of time. But this year, having mislaid a key paper file in the course of my renovation shuffling about, I have been putting taxes off. I’m organized. I’ve started. And I will be done today. But it’s nice to know that I actually don’t have to be done-done until Tuesday. Except for my Q1 estimate.Which is due Monday.

Anyway, Happy Tax Day.

It’s also Jackie Robinson Day, when baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson, who broke major league baseball’s color line on this day in 1947. Interesting that, on that same day 85 years earlier, Lincoln signed into law the Emancipation Compensation Act, freeing the slaves but offering compensation to slave “owners.”

Shamefully, the Boston Red Sox were the last team to have an African-American on their roster – Elijah “Pumpsie” Green. Their second African was Willie Tasby who was with the Red Sox when I saw my first game at Fenway in 1960. Someone in the bleachers had a sheet sign, which he unfurled halfway through the game, that read “This is your night, Willie Tasby.” It apparently was: Tasby went 3 for 4. (Ted Williams hit a homerun; Jimmy Piersall, a local fellow then playing for the Indians, hit two.)

Anyone interested in baseball, American history, the Civil Right movement, etc. would do well to watch the most recent Ken Burns PBS documentary on the life of Jackie Robinson. What a fascinating and complex man he was!

Meanwhile, today, in honor of Jackie Robinson’s breaking the color barrier, all MLB players will wear the number 42.

So, Happy Jackie Robinson Day.

I’m also declaring it Earworm Day as, for the past week, I’ve been plagued by not one, but TWO – count ‘em, TWO – earworms.

Earworm number one: Burl Ives’ “Jolly Holly Christmas.”

Now I can see if it were mid-December, and “Jolly Holly” was playing in every store I walked into. But old Burl – who has always creeped me out, by the way - has been off the airwaves for a good 3+ months now. Off the airwaves, but embedded in my earwaves. Thus, I found myself going out to the building’s vestibule to pick up my mail, only to realize that I had spontaneously broken out into “Oh, by golly, have a jolly, holly Christmas, this year.”

Oh, ho, the mistletoe? How about OH, NO, THE MISTLETOE.

Of course, once I was able to shake free of Burl Ives ratcheting around my brain, something even worse replaced it.

Not in a million years could I come up with the how or the why of the theme song to Daniel Boone come a-calling.

Unless I had Me.TV on for a second there at some point.

However it got there, I was suddenly possessed by the Daniel Boone ditty:

Daniel Boone was a man,
Yes, a big man!
With an eye like an eagle
And as tall as a mountain was he!

What a Boone, what a do-er,
What a dream come-er true-er was he!

Nothing like a nightmare-come-er true-er like this one to have me praying to the earworm gods for the return of Burl Ives and “Jolly Holly Christmas.”

So, Happy Earworm Day.

I will spend the remainder of it completing my taxes, and wondering what song to my wondrous ears will appear to replace “Daniel Boone.”