-16 DEGREES

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Happy New Year!

To most of the country freezing their butts off, Happy New Year! Hang in there. Warm weather will return. It always does.

I received an early morning Happy New Year from a Utica friend. Minus sixteen degrees! I remember those days. Brutal!

Chilly in Key West last night. I am ashamed to say got down to 65 degrees. I turned the heat on. You would too if you lived here all year long. Your blood thins. You are more susceptible to cold.

Key West very cold around the corner. Temperatures in the 50’s. Tomorrow night, low 62. Then a few days with the high in the mid 60’s and night times in the mid 50’s.

Key West style cold!

I remained in last night. The highlight of my evening the Syracuse/Virginia Tech game. Syracuse won 68-56. Syracuse played terrific!

Virginia Tech came into the game with the top field goal percentage in the nation. 54.5 percent. Fourth re 3 shooting percentage. 43.7. Syracuse kept Virginia Tech well below those numbers.

Syracuse’s defense outstanding! Shooting  much better. The team was making shots. Still need improvement in the shooting area, however.

A tough ACC schedule ahead.

Go ‘Cuse!

I wanted to be awake at midnight to watch the ball fall. Missed it. Woke at 12:15. Watched some blabbing from New York. Found New Orleans at 1 my time for their Happy New Year. Provided me with the thrill of it all.

CNN ran Key West 15 minutes after Sushi came down in the shoe. She was walking around by the time they got to her. Never the less, still good. An attractive Sushi in a bright red dress. She makes all her clothes herself. The crowd huge and noisy.

Key West has more than one person descending something or other at midnight. The pirate wench at the Waterfront always a hit. She (a for real one) comes down from the top of a tall ship’s mast. Other descents include a conch shell, Keys lime wedge, unicorn and a tuna.

Something for everyone!

New Year’s Day was not always celebrated January 1. The early calendar was a mess. Unreliable. Followed the lunar cycle. Changed a bit every year. The bits turned into a large number at some point and adjustments had to be made.

Julius Caesar said enough! In 45 B.C., the Julian calendar took effect. Caesar took a little glory from the event. Quintilis was the original name of July. Caesar changed it to July, naming the month after himself.

In the 1570’s, the calendar was still screwed up. By the year 1,000, the calendar had added 7 days. By the mid 1500’s, 10 days.

Pope Gregory III solved the problem by adding 1 day to the calendar every 4 years. Leap year! Still works today.

The new calendar became known as the Gregorian calendar.

Key West’s Dachshund Walk yesterday a success. More than 200 dachshunds participated.

I receive my daily Key West Citizen via the internet. No January 1 edition this morning. Why? I hope it was not because the Citizen gave its workers a day off because of the holiday. A lot of Key Westers worked yesterday. The Citizen should have also, if such was the reason.

Enjoy your day!

APRIL FOOLS’ DAY NO MORE

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One of the finest April Fools’ Day pranks was that once done annually  by the Key West Citizen. The front page of the Citizen on April Fools’ Day was a total joke. A phony. Pure fabrication. Seriously represented, however.

Close to 20 years ago, the front page major article concerned itself with smoking in public places. Understand that back then, smoking was merely considered a problem. The dramatic inroads accomplished since re banning smoking had not yet occurred.

The article said the Key West City Commission in a meeting the evening before had prohibited smoking in all public places. Such included restaurants, bars, on the streets, and on the beaches.

I recall exclaiming to my then wife that the City Commission had no right to do what they did! Outrageous! Against the law! My wife pointed out that it was April Fools’ Day.

The Citizen had gotcha’d me!

Unfortunately, the Citizen no longer publishes such a front page.

April Fools’ Day is celebrated in most countries. The day’s origins uncertain. Some claim first mention of the day occurred in 1392 in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Many disagree.

Another favored source goes way back to the ancient cultures of the Romans and Hindus. Partiers. Tricks were played and people were sent off on fools’ errands.

Pope Gregory XIII comes into the picture. New Year’s Day was then celebrated around April 1. The Pope changed the calendar and moved it to January 1. The day may have changed, the partying had not. April 1 continued to be celebrated as a fun and frolic day.

Big night in Key West! Jimmy Buffett returns! He is performing 7:30 at San Carlos. There will also be a free performance on a huge screen on Higgs Beach. Shown live simultaneous with the San Carlos event.

Higgs Beach will be big time crowded! An event!

I plan on attending.

I enjoy sharing Truman stories with you. Key West was Truman’s favorite place. Unquestionably. He made 11 trips here which totaled 175 days.

On this day in 1950, the President’s wife Bess and daughter Margaret arrived to join him at the Little White House.

Surprising Mrs. Truman showed up. She disliked Washington and apparently anything that had to do with politics. She spent most of her time back in Independence, Missouri.

Truman was often left alone at times when he could have used the comfort of his wife. History does not attribute this situation to any improper liason by either. Truman was deeply in love with his wife. Wrote her almost daily letters. Mrs. Truman did not enjoy the Washington scene.

I spent my yesterday fine tuning last night’s blog talk radio show. Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou. The show went well. My purpose was to share some things kept from the American public. I assume intentionally.

My tuesday’s are always the same. I work on the show by day. Do the show in the evening. Cook dinner for myself in between. I rarely leave the house on a tuesday. My dinner last night was not spectacular. I had a craving for oatmeal. It was oatmeal and a banana.

Enjoy your day!