"AMERICA: Thanks for nothing, Chris!"

When the rooster crowed this morning at the crack of dawn, I rolled over and went back to sleep. For starters, I despise Mondays and usually get them started when half the day ia already over! Just before lunchtime rolled around, I stepped outside to get today's paper and bring in the mail when all of a sudden my neighbor greeted me and wished me a "Happy Holiday" and informed me that there is no mail delivery today. I just said, "Thanks" and came back inside a little confused by what she said when all of a sudden I realized, that it is indeed Columbas Day. When you grow up and finish school, these dates that were once something to look forward to are suddenly meaningless. All this meant to me today was that now that there's no mail, I now had an extra hour of free time that is usually marked for paying bills. When you're a kid, the very second that school starts in September, these holidays are quickly memorized. As you get older and make it through high school and college, we get slowly "weened off" relying on these little dates the same way rehab works to get someone off of Vicodin although no one ever argues over a three day weekend. So today, we honor the great explorer Christopher Columbus. He proved the world is round and discovered America along the way. Question is, do we really want to give this guy a 24 hour honor in October? Perhaps, maybe not!

"History" often becomes tainted over time. No one at this point is willing to argue if Columbus came to America as he intended, or if it was by mistake. Your teacher back in second grade told you the order in which these "alleged" events happened and made it sound like a great idea for a future television pilot on ABC called, "Lost". Suppose things really did play out that way. I guess when Columbus and his three ships stopped in Long Osland there was nothing but open prarie and trees. A place so peaceful that you could hear a cricket chirp 100 miles in any direction. I don't think it went down that way. There absolutely were people here already. He may have "found" America however, did the folks living here even realize they were "lost" in the first place? If anything, he was the one who was lost! The Indians were doing just fine here by themselves and didn't want any attention. If you want to honor Christopher Columbus for finding us, thank him for taking Paradise and turning it into what it is today. If the earth really was flat, maybe he'd be so lost that sooner or later he'd steer the boat off the planet and we wouldn't be in the dilly of a pickle that America is in today. Well, maybe the Indians weren't too smart either. There were more of them stronger in number than the Columbus group. They should have helped him and his crew get off the boat safely, hit them over the head, marinade them in whiskey, and roast them with apples in their mouths over an open fire. Because they opened their arms wide to welcome the man, Columbus and his crew were able to return back home all wearing shirts that read "I went to America, and all I got was the whole country!" ..and before you knew it, the Indians got the shaft, lost their land, and this opened up the doors to what it is today. This is why Columbus was a probably just a generalization for all explorers of that time who would have come here sooner or later, and did just that. Don't believe everything you read or you might walk away thinking not only was Columbus the only guy on the planet that had a boat, he enjoyed it so much that he bought two more exactly like it! Thanks for nothing, Chris!