BENCHWARMER

Blue moons and two moons
Ramon Dacawi

Nature gave us something man-made last night. If you didn't see it, blame the weather, specifically the presence of cloud, if not haze or dust, which could have been man-made, too.

What we had was a blue moon. It happens when there are two full moons in a month, not when the moon looks blue. We had the first full moon last June 1, the second last night, which was still June 30.

The second moon is the blue moon. It occurred in the Philippines at 9:49 p.m., while Japan had it at 10:49, according to the time zones we've established. Because it belongs to a different time zone, the United States had its two-moon month earlier. It had its first moon on May 2 and its blue moon on May 31, which was our first moon on June 1.

Blue moons don't come often, about every 32 months, hence the expression "once in a every blue moon". It happened because we adopted the Western calendar with its unequal distribution of days. Remember that ancient mnemonic rhyme that helps us remember how many days are assigned to each particular month?

"Thirty days hath September, April June and November/ All the rest have 31, except February alone/ Which has 28, till leap year comes and gives it 29."

The rhyme works like the code "My Dear Aunt Sally," a memory guide to the proper order of doing the math applications - multiply, divide, add, subtract.

The Chinese calendar is far more accurate as it assigns 28 days for each month, almost equal to one moon cycle - as Dr. Charles Cheng reminds us each time we have the annual Chinese Spring Festival. Since we use the Western calendar, the date of the festival varies each year, either in late January or early February.

But even inscrutable China now adopts the Gregorian calendar, as it's convenient for its foreign investors perking up its economy. The once Sleeping Giant also appears comfortable shifting to the capitalist road if it works better than communism.

"The color of the cat doesn't matter as long as it can catch mice," one Chinese corporate executive explained. Neat answer to my stupid question whether there is a de-Maoification going on in the mainland.

To environmental activists, the color of the moon – be it blue or other hue - matters if it's man-made. Al Gore keeps telling this. It must give him the blues sometimes when corporate oil and industry executives insist he's wrong, that depletion of the ozone layer is not the result of smog or human-induced pollution, and that our discolored view of the moon is not due to man's greed, but simply the magical work of nature.

God bless Al Gore for telling us this uncomfortable truth. Too bad a man like him rises only once in a blue moon to campaign for sanity at a far higher and noble plane than politics and Western economics.

We can thank his stars for losing the presidency in that photo finish with President George Bush, notwithstanding the controversy being whipped up by U.S. foreign policy.

Back in orbit, if you didn't see the blue moon last night here, or in Moscow, Riyadh and London, try to be in Auckland on July 30, New Zealand time.

The color of your joke may allow you to relate this two-moon thing or the idiom to that familiar, greenish anecdote. It's about a husband gripped by a gnawing sense or urgency just after his wife delivered their first child.

"How long should I wait before I can sleep again with my wife?," he asked the physician. "Wait for two moons to pass," the sympathetic doctor replied euphemistically. The man thanked him and tried whistling his way home.He waited, and waited and waited. After four months, he could no longer take the blues and went back to the doctor.

"I don't know what's up with you doc," he rued. "Up to now I haven't seen two moons rising together up there in the blue sky."

P.S. :Long-time media colleague Ding Galletes, publisher-editor of The Ilocano Observer based in Urdaneta, Pangasinan, wrote “30” last June 2. While working on this mortal plane, Ding opened up a column in my name, using some of my dispatches to fill up the space he titled “A Taste of Tapuy.”

He will have good company up there in the staff of the Supreme Editor – Steve Hamada, Peppot Ilagan, Reuben Cacdac, Willy Cacdac, Gus Saboy, Freddie Mayo. As is the tradition among us older journalists, a tree in Ding’s memory was planted yesterday, beside those for them who welcomed him at the pearly gates. The Baguio Reporter editor-in-chief Eliral Refuerzo spilled some brandy for them, too. (e-mail: rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments).