Columbus Day

You know, I'd almost forgotten it was Columbus Day today. To me, it seems to be the silliest of holidays. There's free parking, certain governmental offices might be closed, you get no mail and there are good sales at Kohl's or JC Penny's. You don't even get it off school (at least in Iowa- the Missus once enlightened me to the fact that in South Dakota, it's apparently Native People's Day and they did get it off of school.)

So Columbus... I can't say that I see too many positives about the guy. The legacy of Spanish and Portugese colonialism isn't a pretty one- and it's one that many countries are still struggling to overcome today. Straight exploitation for resources left whole civilizations devastated in its wake and while you can't blame one man for introducing smallpox to the Americas (though some people try) it seems silly to clap your hands and say 'Hooray' when you have to face up to the fact that the human cost of what Columbus achieved- however inadvertant that cost might have been was extremely high.

But I remember 1992. People went nuts for Columbus- for obvious reasons, 500 years after his voyage. There were massive specials on PBS and some of that must have stuck with me because when, a few years later, my mother got one of those hankerings to dump us all in the car and drive somewhere, we went down to Keokuk to see a scale model of either the Nina, the Pinta or the Santa Maria. I can't remember which. And it was very cool and the ship was very small. I think it's possible to dislike the effects of achievement while at the same time respecting it- because heading into the unknown, however you do it, takes courage.

Of course, the holiday also gets politicized. Conservatives complain about the politically correct police tryin' to run Columbus down. Native Americans make compelling points that there isn't really a lot to celebrate when you get right down to it.

I feel like Columbus Day isn't really a holiday. If it were, there'd be no classes today and I'd be picking up some holiday pay at work. The concept of a Native People's Day might make a lot more sense to me but undoubtedly someone will object to that. So instead, we'll just have a half-assed holiday. Some weird day where we don't get mail and get free parking in the ramps downtown.

I guess that's Columbus' legacy. That and having the capitol of Ohio named after him.