TIME TO CELEBRATE

It's National Donut Day! There will be scenes of joyful partying and wild abandon. All over the country, parades will feature little kiddies dressed in donut costumes marching down main street, drum majorettes, and clog dancing. Confetti! Sugar! World War One era nurses. Oompah bands!

No?

What's wrong with you Americans?

Have you no sense of history? No pride in something uniquely American?


No addiction to wholesome deep-fried snacks, highly refined sugar, unsaturated fats, and caffeinated beverages. Or the appropriate seasonal food without which the English would have welcomed us in both world wars to make Europe safe for democracy?

Nothing cheers up the boys at the gym doing the treadmills and weights better than a bag of hot fresh donuts from the place across the street. Their bleary eyes will brighten up, there will be a quickness and a vigour to their heart-pumping actions, leggy joggers from up the hill come flocking ...

Yeah, um. Despite it being darned well the only national holiday celebrating Dutch American achievements, I am myself not really vested. As a Dutch American descended from the first settlers in New York, I suppose I ought to be giddy. But I don't eat breakfast, and this isn't the great depression when everyone was desperate for energy-boosting and upcheering.

When I stepped out of the house I said 'good morning' to a neighbor, waved at the dude across the street, lit my pipe, and headed up the hill to be unsocial and pensive for the first half hour of the day. No donut. Neither intended nor spontaneous. Not a prospect.

Coffee, tobacco, chirping birdies, and solitude.
Breakfast of champions.



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