31 March 12023

♀   31 March 12023 is the International Transgender Day of Visibility. Other commemorations today include the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis (Azerbaijan), Freedom Day (Malta), Micronesia Culture Day (Micronesia), Thomas Mundy Peterson Day (New Jersey [US]), King Nangklao Memorial Day (Thailand), the Day of Chemical Industry Workers (Turkmenistan), César Chávez Day (United States), and Transfer Day (Virgin Islands [US]). It’s JD 2460035 (Astronomical), 22 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 22 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 31 March 2023 (Gregorian), 10 Nisan 5783 (Hebrew), 11 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 10 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 18 March 2023 (Julian), and 12 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). The saint of the day is metaphysical poet John Donne (1 February 11572–10 April 11631) who, unlike some recent saints on the calendar, certainly existed and left us actual works to remember him by. Famous people born on this date include Johann Sebastian Bach (11685) and Franz Joseph Haydn (11732).

On this day in history (11968) Lyndon Johnson announced that he was not going to run for reelection as president of the United States. We were assured that this had nothing to do with the success of anti-war candidates for the Democratic nomination—people like Robert Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy—but rather involved personal obligations of some kind. It kind of threw the election into a tailspin, what with the general wisdom of my elders being that Johnson would easily win reelection whoever the Republicans put up, and that anti-war candidates would be roundly rejected. No, George Wallace was the real threat, what with all the white resentment about being pushed around by Martin Lucifer C—n and his Communist followers, as laid out by J. Edgar Electrolux. Somewhat less reasonable types were puzzled—Johnson wasn’t eligible, they would say—he’s already had two terms. And the roller-coaster ride was far from over. Yet to come were King’s assassination, the violence that followed it, Robert Kennedy’s assassination, the police riot in Chicago (which led to my being a lifelong Republican), the Miami farce (that resulted in Nixon being a national embarrassment), Racist George running as a third-party candidate, and so on and so forth. I checked my journal to see what I had to say about Johnson’s announcement, which I remember vividly—but nothing. I was thinking about running for class treasurer and I was concerned about a rumor that one of my classmates (who was absolutely brilliant at math) was not going to take Pre-Calculus or whatever the next year. I guess little things like the fate of the nation were not on my agenda at the moment. (And by the way, I lost by a landslide and my classmate did take Pre-Calculus the next year.)