The Shortest Night and other midsummer interests

Yesterday, about 2:06 pm (if I have my time zones right), the Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepost 606 left the season of Spring and entered the season of Summer, a cardinal point in the rotation of the earth around the sun in its yearly repeated trek through the universe. This event is properly called the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere of the planetary orb we call home. "Solstice" derives from two roots, the Latin sol with which we are all familiar representing the sun; and stice from the Latin verb sistere, to stand by or stand still. We get words like assist (stand with), desist (stand away), and resist (stand against), from the same root. So the solstice indicates the day when the sun is standing still, or so it seems. Yesterday, the length of daylight was one second longer than the previous day, and today, the length of daylight will be one second shorter than yesterday, meaning the sun "stood still" in the sky longer yesterday than any other day of the year, hence a solstice. Having said that, last night then was the shortest night. See the chart below of sunrises and sunsets here in Louisville for the period mentioned.

In ancient times, Germanic, Slavic, and Celtic cultures (and others) lit a bonfire. One of the reasons for the bonfire was to give extra strength to the sun to guarantee the crops, as the length of days would now, and until around December 21, be growing shorter. The Oak King transpired into the Holly King. The shortest night was also a night of fire festivals and of love magic, of love oracles and divination. It had to do with lovers and predictions, when pairs of lovers would jump through the luck-bringing flames trying to see if their current love was their true love or not. And through it all there were good old-fashioned fairies, not all of whom were good. Some were mischievous and others were down right evil. But usually in the end, all is well. Shakespeare's play, A Misummer's Night Dream, is centered on the activities of the year's shortest night. The playful fairy in the play is Puck, or Robin Goodfellow. Of course, the Christian leaders, thinking there was a little too much celebrating in the woods with one's lover (or lovers), co-opted the day into the Feast of Saint John's Nativity, now celebrated on the 24th. No fun. So, in honor of the occassion, did you light a bonfire and ramble through the flames, chancing your luck in the night?

Here is the chart showing the lengthening of June 21st and the shortening of June 22nd.

DATE-----------RISE------SET-------LENGTH---------DIFF.
June 20, 2007 6:20 AM 9:10 PM 14h 49m 39s + 0m 05s
June 21, 2007 6:20 AM 9:10 PM 14h 49m 40s + 0m 01s
June 22, 2007 6:20 AM 9:10 PM 14h 49m 39s − 0m 01s


Unrelated to Summer Solstices, Midsummer Dreams, and Bonfires, today marks a birthday of one of my friends, Jefferson County's County Judge Executive sans portfolio Ken Herndon, who is celebrating the 50th Anniversary - in Bingo we would say Five-Oh - of his Nativity. Ken is a native of Lone Oak, a formerly rural McCracken County village, now a suburb of Paducah. He has served since 2003 as our County Judge, dutifully carrying out the duties assigned to him under the Merger law by the Council, and getting paid in kind. They have given him nothing to do and they have paid him nothing for doing it. Pretty good gig. And, he is doing a bang-up (non-)job for the taxpayers of Jefferson County on his salary of Zero Dollars and Zero Cents. Happy 50th Birthday, Ken.

Tomorrow, if he were living, would be the 95th birthday of my grandfather who raised me, Dan Hockensmith.

Also, in a previous entry, I said the effective date of the legislation approving the creation of Jefferson County, Virginia was December, 1780. That was incorrect. It was a minor error, but any error is wrong. It was November 1, 1780. Remember that as it will likely appear again.