Every year, I say, “Wow, here it is August already!” But it’s true — here it is August already!
For some reason, I’ve kind of gotten into the habit of talking about each upcoming month — so today, it’s August’s turn…
I’ve mention before that August was once the sixth month of the year. In the original ten-month Roman calendar, the month went by the name of Sextilis. meaning “the sixth month” in Latin. Then around 700BC, August was rudely shoved back in the order of months because January and February were added to the beginning of the year by King Numa Pompilius. August has also gone through a number of changes in its number of days. In the old ten-month calendar, the months all had either 30 or 31 days that totaled 304 days in the year. Not only did Pompilius add January and February, he also reduced the number of days in August down to 29. It didn’t get to keep 31 days until Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar. And finally, in 8BC, the month was named Augustus — in honor of the Roman emperor Augustus.
If you’re a traveler, you probably know that parts of the world, especially a lot of countries in Europe, consider August to be their “holiday” period. A lot of the major cities are almost completely empty of locals. Of course, they’re filled with other people or tourists taking their holidays.
In the UK, Lammas Day is celebrated as the first day of harvest on August first. Traditionally it was the day in which harvested wheat would be baked into bread and given to the church. This bread was used as the Communion bread for a special Mass to celebrate the beginning of harvest. That tradition ended when Henry XIII broke away from the Catholic Church.
August is noted for a few other things besides it being my birthday month — Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech on August 28, 1963. Booze of some sort appears to get a special day in every month — August is no exception, with August 16 being National Rum Day. And I learned 50 years ago while living in Manila, August is the Month of Philippine Language.
Elvis fans always remember his passing, on August 16, 1977, although not all bought into his death…. I remember someone saw him in Food Lion here in Shepherdstown not too long ago.
And in case you’re wondering, August is a relatively common name for boys in Sweden, but only twenty two percent of Swedish boys named August are actually born in August.
So there you have it — August in a nutshell…. even though it’s referred to as the dog days of summer, it’s the last real summer month, so get out an enjoy the warm weather.
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