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Saturday was Columbus Day, since it was Oct. 12. Or maybe Columbus Day was Monday, since the post office and courthouse were closed.
Then again, Columbus Day could be next week, too. The mariner used the Julian calendar. If our modern Gregorian calendar (adopted at times ranging from 1582 in Spain to 1923 in Greece) had been in effect in 1492, then Columbus would have encountered the New World on Oct. 22.
For that matter, the only holiday I was ever sure of at this time of year is Greeley Day, which commemorates a visit on Oct. 12, 1870, of Horace Greeley to his eponymous city. But I don't know whether they still celebrate it.
When I was in school there, we learned that Columbus was a great explorer who brought the blessings of Christianity and civilization to savages. The revisionists came along, and now we learn that Columbus practiced terror, genocide, oppression and exploitation against the gentle inhabitants of the idyllic New World.
As the 500th anniversary approaches, it is time for some re-revisionism.
Western Europe held no monopoly on imperialism. In less than a century, the Inca domain spread from one remote mountain valley to a goodly chunk of a continent, and this empire came by forcible conquest.
Conquered peoples were forcibly resettled by the Incas, who made drums from the tanned skins of opposition leaders. One reason that Francisco Pizarro was able to conquer Peru in only three years with only 180 men is this: Many subjugated tribes sided with the Spaniards, reasoning that anybody had to be an improvement on the brutal and bloodthirsty Incas.
They may have been wrong, but that hardly makes the Incas benign. Recent advances in translation demonstrate that the Mayans, so beloved of New-Age airheads for their mellow ways, often marked their accurate calendars by looting each other's cities.
Western Europe had no monopoly on disease, either. Starting in about 1500, syphilis ravaged the Old World, killing and crippling by the thousand. Most histories agree that Columbus brought it from the Indies to Europe, where the scourge was loosed on a defenseless population.
How many millions does tobacco kill or maim each year? The smoking of tobacco is another deadly New World contribution. How much woe does cocaine cause? The coca plant is native to the New World, and nowhere else.
Presuming that all the indigenous peoples of the Americas were noble and innocent makes no more sense than pretending that Columbus was the epitome of enlightenment. It's too bad that we get forced to one extreme or the other, when the truth -- that some people on all continents have always resembled U.S. senators in their moral views -- is so much more interesting.
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