<Awareness Daze

"And we've been cataloging all these days for quite some time. All during the 1940s, the U.S. Department of Commerce maintained a publication called "Special Days, Weeks, and Months," a collection of events sponsored by trade groups. In 1953, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce took over the publishing, and then, in 1959, it passed it along to a private company called Chase's Calendar of Events.

Today, Chase's, published annually, contains more than 12,000 entries and is more than 700 pages long. The company allows any sponsor of an event to send in an item and will publish it free of charge, though it limits entries to those that are of national or broadly regional interest or that seem to have some special entertainment value.

It's that last category that explains why, in the month of October alone, we are subject to Listen to Your Inner Critic Month, Freedom From Bullies at Work Week, Create a Great Funeral Day, National Be Bald and Be Free Day, National Sarcastics Month and National She Loves God Week."