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Speaking of days …“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you,”…

Speaking of days …

“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you,” John Wooden said a while ago.

It turned out it was World Smile Day when John’s advice came along, the 3rd of October. The next day was World Animal Day, the day after that was Vegetarian Day, and we were on a roll, so what else could a person do but ask the world’s Know-It-All, Google, What Day Is It? Here’s 828 million possible answers in 0.023 seconds, it bragged.

We’re guessing that children would enjoy Free Comic Book Day, Talk Like a Pirate Day, and National Pancake Day, together with National Cheeseburger Day where Mom could take them while Dad went to a car day: Chev Malibu Day, National Biodiesel Day, Volkswagen Van Day or one of countless other car days. And Dad could get off the hook getting tickets to Girls’ Day Out Day for Mom, right?

National Parking Day sounds boring, Pi Day would have limited appeal, as would No Pants Day, and International Rock Flipping Day. Yep, you flip over rocks in a creek. No Pants Day is, at present, exclusively in England, where “pants” means underwear, and where “trousers” are pants.

There’s a day for every color of the rainbow, many helping others, such as Red Nose Day in England. Those involved wear a clown’s red nose, and coincidentally was held yesterday with our October 14 election, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Or does it?

Anyway, with the election over we can celebrate Happy Day, despite it being a long way off. It’s rare in one respect. Walls Ice Cream company, in Wales, had Cliff Arnall, a psychologist at Cardiff University, develop a mathematical formula to set the date: “O + (NxS) + Cpm/T He,” where O stands for outdoor activity, N is connection with nature, S is socialization with people, Cpm for childhood positive memories, T is the mean temperature and He is holiday expected. Oh, the formula says it’s June 20th.

There’s a day, a week, or a month set aside to celebrate anything and everything you can name. Google came up with Sweater Day, Liars’ Day, even Strawman Day, but it didn’t spew out one for a Stock Market Manipulators’ Day, or How to Spot Crooks in High Places Day, where we could consider putting our audit heroine Sheila Fraser on their backs till honesty was the order of the day.

In all this financial mayhem I’ve had to settle for some old retirement planning advice from an old friend who used old examples so I could relate:

“If you had purchased $1,000 of Nortel stock three years ago, it would now be worth $49. With Enron you’d have $16.50 of your original $1,000, WorldCom you’d have just under $5.

But, if over the last three years you bought $1,000 worth of beer, drank it and returned the cans for refund you’d have $60, so the best investment advice is to drink beer and recycle.

His math seems to be on a par with the giant financial market manipulators, so it’s suspect too. But it’s as relevant as our panoply of election promises, or a formula on how to spot crooks in high places might be, but who knows, maybe the ice cream company will come up with another formula.

Actually, if I could choose the Day of Days, I’d go along with six-year-old Cody. His aunt Catherine Pulsifer, a motivational writer, was on the swing beside him in the playground, and he succeeded in swinging higher than her.

“Today is the best day,” he said, grinning happily.

She agreed, suggesting children don’t say “if only”, or “when I get this or that,” or “when I have enough money.” They don’t need expensive things to make them happy, they live the moment, and the day, to the fullest.

A tip of the hat to Cody for his swinging philosophical advice.

A second tip of the hat to Canadian voters who today are swinging with the hope their votes have kicked off Plant the Seeds of Greatness Month!