Who needs sleep anyway?

 

IThe Walkathon in an earlier year.
t happens once a year. Today wasthe day. I was awakened at seven o’clock by the sounds of a marching band,complete with drum rolls. The high school marching band was tuning up orwhatever they call it directly across the street from our house. We live acrossfrom Lily B. Clayton Elementary School, a historic school with an enthusiasticparent support program. The occasion today was the annual Lily B. Walkathonwhere all students who are able march a mile through the neighborhood, alongwith teachers, parents and friends. Neighbors sit on their porches or frontlawns to wave and encourage the walkers. The parade is led by mounted policeofficers, the marching band, and often a city official in the requisiteconvertible. It’s really a terrific neighborhood occasion. And a fundraiser forthe school. This year the kids raised $58,000 by getting people to support themin the walk.

But seven o’clock is awfullyearly, at least for me. I did doze, and then when they marched away, I fellsound asleep until I heard the drums returning at about nine o’clock. As I laythere listening to them, it occurred to me that it was like having an MRI,where you lie there and try to make sense or a pattern out of the sounds the machineis making. Only in this case there was a pattern. Those high school kids arepretty darn good.

To make it worse, four AmberAlerts about five o’clock in the morning brought me straight up in bed andalarmed Sophie who ran around the cottage barking at an enemy she couldn’t see.I’m not savvy enough on my iPhone that I could find out what child is missing,but I pray safety for them. Jacob tells me I missed a national alert lastweekend over the Hamas attack on Israel. Perhaps what I missed this morning wasa warning about the predicted Day of Rage. We are all grateful it doesn’t seemto have materialized, though when is at this point always leery of complacency.

All this on Friday thethirteenth. I don’t know about you, but I have never been particularlysuperstitious. In fact, I think it’s kind of silly that tall buildings neverlabel thirteenth floor. No matter what they call it, that fourteenth floor isreally number thirteen. But I read an interesting column this morning. Triskaidekaphobia is the name for extreme superstition of fearof the number thirteen. Writer Kait Carson (Scuba diving mysteries, the newestmystery of which is Deep Dive) points out that you never seat thirteenat a dining table (awkward anyway) and the number 13 is the death card in Tarot.She claims some writers refuse to advertise the thirteenth in a mystery series—howwould you get around that?

But accordingto Kait, in eastern cultures the number is considered lucky, and she herself hashad some lucky Fridays the thirteenth. Maybe it’s all in the way you look atit. Me? I think I’ll consider it neutral, just like any other day—almost. Thenagain maybe that marching band was trying to tell me something. How about you?Are you superstitious?

Meantime, I’mjust going to try to learn to pronounce Triskaidekaphobia—I can’t even break itdown into component parts that make any sense.