Published: July 03, 2008 02:22 pm            

Independence Day weekend a midpoint for sports, clothes, daylight and voting

Welcome to the beginning of the end of summer. Spring clothes are long gone and department store shelves will be filled with mark-downs on hot weather outfits very soon. Lawnmowers will be on special.

The July 4 calendar milestone has been passed, which means an annual lifestyle change.

Traditionally, Independence Day marked the halfway point of the major league baseball season but no longer. The All Star Game is not a midpoint, either. More than half the season is already gone and the stars won’t come out to play each other for more than a week.

This baseball season could produce yet another milestone. It has been a full century since the Chicago Cubs last won a World Series but the North Siders have the best record in the National League right now and are believed by many to be the best team in all of baseball. The last time the Cubs won a World Series, 1908, was a year before Henry Ford produced the first Model T.

Despite some summer classes in selected local counties, July remains the one fabulous month that students do not have to go to school. Snow interruptions and expanded schedules have eliminated the “good old days” when school ended before Memorial Day and did not resume until after Labor Day.

Daylight is slowly fading as this new month begins. The summer solstice occurred more than a week ago and the amount of daylight has once again passed its peak. It’s getting dark a few minutes earlier now and for those of us who love being outdoors, that is not something we look forward to.

Environmentalists (which should include all of us) are looking north – to the North Pole. The 2008 summer may very well be the first time in recorded history that the pole will be ice free. Global warming? Is “The Day after Tomorrow” coming?

More and more this summer, we are keeping an eye on unusual weather. Some parts of Missouri are already approaching 50 inches of rain since January. Even in Four Seasons country, many of the old timers say that we have reached a point where we seem to go directly from winter to summer and that spring is almost off the calendar.

In the midst of the Olympics and summer vacations, we all wonder what to expect from the upcoming Presidential elections. Teachers, the working group my wife and I belong to, are not thrilled. Neither Obama nor McCain is favored by most educational associations across America. Almost without exception, teacher federations endorsed Clinton or Edwards, or someone else who lost in the primaries. No matter who wins now, it appears that public education is heading into at least another four years without a presidential “friend” in Washington.

In the midst of this great political month, most known as being the time in 1776 when the colonies formally broke ties with Great Britain, there is another milestone regarding law and the legal system.

It was on Independence Day weekend in 1853 when a noted suffragette (woman who believed that women should have the right to vote) Amelia Jenks Bloomer appeared in Connecticut wearing pants. Mrs. Bloomer, the publisher of a leading reform magazine of the day called “The Lily” had been seen wearing pants in public on several occasions for more than four years at the time of her speech, which was made to denounce the requirement in many states that women must cover their legs with dresses when in public.

Mrs. Bloomer, whose name has since become attached to certain articles of women’s attire, was a good friend and women’s right campaigner with Susan B. Anthony, who long led the fight for the right of women to vote in public elections.

May the best person win in the upcoming election!

Larry Hypes is a Tazewell High School teacher and Daily Telegraph columnist.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.