Who needs sleep anyway?

 

I

The Walkathon in an earlier year.

t happens once a year. Today was the 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 or whatever they call it directly across the street from our house. We live across from Lily B. Clayton Elementary School, a historic school with an enthusiastic parent support program. The occasion today was the annual Lily B. Walkathon where all students who are able march a mile through the neighborhood, along with teachers, parents and friends. Neighbors sit on their porches or front lawns to wave and encourage the walkers. The parade is led by mounted police officers, the marching band, and often a city official in the requisite convertible. It’s really a terrific neighborhood occasion. And a fundraiser for the school. This year the kids raised $58,000 by getting people to support them in the walk.

But seven o’clock is awfully early, at least for me. I did doze, and then when they marched away, I fell sound asleep until I heard the drums returning at about nine o’clock. As I lay there 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 machine is making. Only in this case there was a pattern. Those high school kids are pretty darn good.

To make it worse, four Amber Alerts about five o’clock in the morning brought me straight up in bed and alarmed 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 last weekend over the Hamas attack on Israel. Perhaps what I missed this morning was a warning about the predicted Day of Rage. We are all grateful it doesn’t seem to have materialized, though when is at this point always leery of complacency.

All this on Friday the thirteenth. I don’t know about you, but I have never been particularly superstitious. In fact, I think it’s kind of silly that tall buildings never label thirteenth floor. No matter what they call it, that fourteenth floor is really number thirteen. But I read an interesting column this morning. Triskaidekaphobia is the name for extreme superstition of fear of the number thirteen. Writer Kait Carson (Scuba diving mysteries, the newest mystery of which is Deep Dive) points out that you never seat thirteen at 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—how would you get around that?

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

Meantime, I’m just going to try to learn to pronounce Triskaidekaphobia—I can’t even break it down into component parts that make any sense.