If ir’s Wednesday, this must be…

In Oysterville, Wednesday is Garbage Day.  It’s the day we shuffle around the house emptying wastepaper baskets and bagging up everything that hasn’t gone into our compost or into the recycle bins.  The stuff that ultimately goes into the dumpster doesn’t amount to much these days after all the sorting and separating is done and so we’ve gone to once-a-month collections for our household.  The downside to that, of course, is remembering when Garbage Day rolls around.

When I was working, Wednesday was Hump Day.  I tended to forget that, too.  In fact, I didn’t ever get behind the concept of Wednesday being, as the online Urban Dictionary says:  the hump of the week – the absolute BEST day of the week, the day of maximum hope that you might make it out of this week alive.  Undoubtedly the concept came from people who disliked their jobs.  I couldn’t really relate to that.  I loved teaching and often wished there were more days in the work week, not fewer.

Today is Wednesday but it’s not Garbage Day (that was last week) and it’s not Hump Day (not since retirement.)  Today is Community Historian Day!  From now until the middle of April, Wednesdays are the days that seventeen students gather together to learn about the history of our area from the experts.  A few of us – steering committee members and Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum personnel – have been invited to audit the sessions.

Today one of the featured experts will be Museum Collections Manager Barbara Minard.  Her subject will be “Material Culture” and students will have some hands-on opportunities with artifacts from the museum’s collection.  I understand that a representative from the Chinook Nation will also be on hand to give cultural context to those artifacts.

Whoo Hoo!  I am excited about the opportunity to be there.  If today’s session is anything like last week’s program with ecologist Kathleen Sayce and artist Charles Funk, we will all come away stuffed with new knowledge and will be looking around us with new eyes.  And to think there are folks out there that are only looking forward to this as Hump Day!  Sad.

2 Responses to “If ir’s Wednesday, this must be…”

  1. Stephanie Frieze says:

    Oh, how I wish I could be there with you, Sydney! Listen for all of us and have a wonderful day!

  2. Bill Stone says:

    Sad that so many people really do work years on end at jobs where they experoence no joy, no sense of accomplishment, only a desire to “get through it.”

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