October 2022: The Strange Files Newsletter

October Means Halloween, and So Much More

Halloween is the most notable holiday in the month of October, this year falling on a Monday (Oct. 31). It is also the month in which we celebrate Columbus Day/Indigenous People's Day.

There's even more to celebrate. For instance, the month of October is also:

Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Bat Appreciation Month

Gay and Lesbian History Month

National Roller Skating Month

World Menopause Month

Vegetarian Awareness Month

National Crime Prevention Month

American Cheese Month

and lest we forget...

Squirrel Awareness and Appreciation Month

But back to Halloween, here's some trivia you can use to impress your friends and frenemies:

Where did Halloween start? It traces its origins to a Celtic holiday known as Samhain.

How did the tradition of dressing up in costumes begin? It was once believed that at the end of October, ghosts, goblins and demons walked the earth. To protect themselves, people would dress up as spirits to blend in.

Who brought the Halloween tradition to America? The Irish during the potato famine.

Who was the first First Lady to decorate the While House for Halloween? Mamie Eisenhower in 1958.

What state produces the most pumpkins? Illinois.

Michael Myers' mask in the movie Halloween was that of a famous actor. 

Which one? William Shatner. The studio did the first movie on the cheap so they took a Star Trek mask, painted it white, and distorted it.

What do you call fear of Halloween? Samhainophobia

Other Notable October Milestones and Events...

The Albuquerque International Balloon Festival will celebrate it's 50th anniversary this October 1-9. It is the largest hot-air balloon gathering in the world.

The entire month of October is Inktober, a monthlong art challenge focused on improving drawing skills. More that that here.

The Joy of Sex, Dr. Alex Comfort's groundbreaking book, was published fifty years ago this month.

Oct. 3 is the 100th anniversary of the first woman to be named a United States Senator. In 1922 (two years after women won the right to vote) Rebecca Felton, 87, of Cartersville, Georgia was appointed on an interim basis to fill a Senate vacancy. The appointment lasted two days.

Seventy years ago, on Oct. 3, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, the radio-turned-TV show, premiered. Lasting 435 episodes. Ozzie and Harriet Nelson's two kids, Ricky and David, grew up on set, eventually married, and their wives became part of the show. Ricky Nelson, of course, used his TV celebrity to launch his own career as a pop music star. The shows were filmed in the family's home. Interesting trivia: 409 of the shows were in black and white; the final 26 were in color. The last episode aired on Sept. 3, 1966.

The U.S. Supreme Court's 2022--23 term begins on Oct. 3. Ordinarily, the court has seven two-week sessions hearing oral arguments and then issues decisions in June or July.

National Taco Day is Oct. 4. Interesting bit of taco trivia: The word "taco" first appeared in a U.S. magazine in 1905.

The James Bond film franchise was launched 60 years ago this month (on Oct. 5, 1962) with Doctor No starring Sean Connery.

Celebrate Earth Science Week Oct. 9-15. More information here.

Father-Daughter Day is Oct. 9. The day was created by Smokey Robinson to celebrate the bond between fathers and daughters and the role dads play in helping their daughters to develop into strong, confident women.

Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day is Oct. 10. Columbus Day recognizes the "discovery" of the Americas by Christopher Columbus. It is a federal holiday. Indigenous Peoples' Day is a counterpoint to Columbus Day honoring the native people of the Americas, and is designed to raise awareness of how they suffered colonization, disease, enslavement, and genocide following Columbus' arrival.

Oct. 11 is National Coming Out Day, an event that encourages LGBT people to "come out of the closet" and to raise awareness of the LGBT community and civil rights movement.

Rodent Awareness Week is Oct. 16-22. It has nothing to do with a certain Disney character named Mickey, but, rather, highlights the danger rodents pose to public health.

The first newspaper comic strip -- The Yellow Kid Takes a Hand at Golf -- appeared on Oct. 18, 1896.

The first all-woman spacewalk took place on Oct. 18, 2019, when NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christine Koch worked outside the International Space Station for a little over seven hours repairing a faulty battery unit.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, which nearly led to thermonuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, began sixty years ago with a speech from President John F. Kennedy demanding Soviet rockets be removed from Cuba. The date was Oct. 22, 1962. The crisis was averted six days later when the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles and the U.S. pulled rockets out of Turkey.

Fifty years ago, on Oct. 25, 1972, the first women to complete their training at Quantico became FBI agents. Their names: Susan Lynn Roley and Joanne E. Pierce. Agent Carter would have been proud.

There will be a partial eclipse of the sun on Oct. 25. To see it you need to be in Europe, northeast Africa, the Middle East or western Asia. 

National Cat Day is Oct. 29. The celebration is designed to encourage cat adoption from animal shelters. The pitch: Cats lower blood pressure. (Personal note: I like cats, even when they scratch me, which, of course, results in additional pressure-lowering blood loss.)

Old in Space

On Oct. 29, 1998, former astronaut, U.S. senator, and presidential candidate John Glenn of Ohio launched back into space. Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth during the early days of the space program. His return to space made him the oldest human in outer space. He was 70 years old when the Space Shuttle Discovery took off from Cape Canaveral. (Side note: I was there covering the event and I wasn't the only person in the press gallery holding my breath with fingers crossed when they lit the candle. Further side note: Annie Glenn, John's better half, was one of the very nicest and most down to earth (no pun intended) people I have ever known. They made for an awe-inspiring couple. If you've never seen the movie The Right Stuff, you should do so. It perfectly captures their struggles during the early days of NASA and John's devotion to Annie.)

October TV events...

Bob's Burgers begins its fifth season on Fox starting Oct. 5.

The Flash (Oct. 7) and Jane the Virgin (Oct. 13) return to CW.

In the spirit of Halloween, American Horror Story: Freak Show returns on Oct. 8 on FX.

The Affair, premiering on Showtime on Oct. 12, is creating a lot of buzz. 

Benched, a new sitcom on the USA network, launches on Oct. 28 (about a corporate lawyer bumped down to become a public defender.)

October is Pick Up Your Putins Month. And, yes, so was September, August, etc. Why. Because it is so vital that we keep top of mind how Putins make the Earth a worse place to live and that by ridding ourselves of Putins we'll all be happier and healthier. So, don't neglect to pick up those Putins after Fido does his business. Remember a Putin-free world is a better world.

Elvis in History--

October Report

We continue our monthly Elvis report noting that on October 1, 1958, Elvis arrived in Germany for the beginning of his military deployment there.

A year before (on Oct. 28, 1957), Elvis wiggled his pelvis before hundreds of screaming fans at the Pan Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles bringing out the vice squad and shutting down the show's appearance the next night to ensure he didn't further violate the city's indecency law. (Yeah, I know. L.A. had indecency laws? L.A.? Really?)

What I'm Reading

and Watching 

NASA live television was must watching at the end of September as a satellite named DART crashed into an asteroid millions of miles away from Earth at a speed of 14,000 mph. It was a proof-of-concept experiment designed to show that we could hit a speeding asteroid and knock it out of its orbit (if only slightly for test purposes) so that someday if a life-threatening space rock heads toward our homeworld we can intercept it.

When I created a video about this event earlier in September, it caught fire on Tik Tok gathering more than 700,000 views, 34,000 likes and 1,700 comments. You can catch me on Tik Tok here: @jcbruce

Book Club Friends (and Army of the Strange officers) Patty and Charlie Freydberg loaned me a copy of Pulitzer-winning Larry McMurtry's Boone's Lick , published in 2000. I'm embarrassed to confess it is only the second McMurtry book I've read, the first being the incredible Lonesome Dove. Boone's Lick is, as the critics note, an enthralling tale of the 19th century American West. It's a quest, a peek at history, and a wholly marvelous tale. So glad I read it.

The Weather Channel and all of the Southwest Florida TV stations. As I was writing this newsletter, Hurricane Ian was bearing down on the west coast of Florida. The storm was forecast to make landfall just north of us but we faced a storm surge of six-to-eight feet. Likely to lose power, too. So, if you are reading this, it means you got a version of the newsletter that I prepared a few days earlier than normal and sent off to Constant Contact's automatic scheduling tool to deliver on Oct. 1 fearing I would not be able to update it before we lost power. If that's all we lose, I'll call that a win.

They Said It About the Weather

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody. does anything about it."

-- Charles Dudley Warner

"Weather forecast for tonight: dark."

-- George Carlin

"Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine."

-- Anthony J. D'Angelo

News of the Strange

Oh, Rocky!

A North Dakota woman thought she was doing the humane thing. When she found a raccoon on the side of the road, she rescued it, nursed it back to health, and named him Rocky.

Then she decided to show off Rocky to her friends.

That's when things turned south.

There is a North Dakota law that prohibits possession of a furbearer. And when health officials heard about Rocky they sprang into action.

Now the Good Samaritan faces possible jail time and hefty fines.

And Rocky? Well, here's where you can find out the rest of the story.

From Our Mailbag

Dear J.C.

Earlier in the newsletter you referred to ghosts AND goblins. What's the difference?

S. King

Ghosts are made of sheets, are friendly, and respond to the name Casper. Goblins, on the other hand, are mischievous, dwarflike and ugly.

Dear J.C.

In your book Florida Man, there's a heavy supernatural element. Do you actually believe in ghosts and all that stuff?

C. Hiaasen

I figure if ghosts believe in me I should return the favor. Seems like the polite thing to do.

Dear J.C.

No you don't. You're just joking with us, right?

J. Napier

OK, I confess, I neither believe nor disbelieve in ghosts. Same with UFOs. I'm open to evidence if anyone has any. I'm kind of a reality-based person. Speaking of which, the reality is you can now get your copies of all five of the books in The Strange Files series at their absolute lowest price of the year (so far). 

The Strange Files series chronicles the adventures of Alexander Strange and is available in multiple formats: hard-cover, trade paperback, e-book, and Mister Manners is also available as an audiobook. Here are some helpful Amazon links. You can also order from Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and other online retailers.

The Strange Files, Florida Man, Get Strange, Strange Currents, and Mister Manners.

You can read more about these books on my website at www.jcbruce.com

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Parting Shot