ObservancesA memory game from 1780 that accidentally became a carol, containing at least two gifts nobody can reliably identify and one internet legend with no evidence behind it. Twelve gifts, twelve cards, one per day.
ObservancesPicard got a holiday from a background prop. Kirk got nothing, so March 22 is the closest anchor available. The reason it is worth marking has little to do with Star Trek: at 90 Shatner became the oldest person to…
ObservancesFirst Contact Day marks the day in 2063 when a drunk who wanted to get rich flew a warp ship built from a nuclear missile, and the Vulcans noticed. The founding moment of the utopia belongs to a man far…
ObservancesCaptain Picard Day exists because a set decorator hung a banner in the background of one scene. No dialogue explains it. Fans picked June 16 and made it real. That is the clearest example I know of a detail becoming…
ObservancesI have interviewed a great many people past retirement for books. Almost all of them apologized for not being interesting enough. They were wrong every single time.
ObservancesThere is no founding body and no origin story, which describes most of the modern calendar. The interesting question is why a handful survive and the rest evaporate.
ObservancesThe forecast is worthless and the tradition is a century old. Then a film came out and the phrase stopped meaning the custom entirely, which almost never happens.
ObservancesFederal law still calls the third Monday of February Washington's Birthday. The popular name spread anyway, and turned a day about a person into a day about an office.
ObservancesWashington was not the cleverest man in any room he entered. What he had was rarer: he could be trusted with power, and twice he handed it back when nobody could have made him.
ObservancesLincoln had about a year of formal schooling and taught himself everything else. Then he was handed a fracturing country, and he held it together without helping himself to the power the emergency offered.
ObservancesA private joke between two friends in 1995 became an international observance in 2002. I drove to a pirate faire for it once, in the worst costume present.
ObservancesBats Day has brought the goth community to Anaheim since 1999. I went in 2006, dressed after a fashion, and watched Main Street part for a friend who had decided completely what she was doing.
A holiday survives because somebody wrote down what it meant while the people who knew were still around to ask. The same is true of a life and a career. Richard Lowe has authored 113+ books and ghostwritten 54+ more, most of them built from interviews with people who thought their story was ordinary. If yours has a date on it, start with a conversation.
Professional ghostwriting for executives, founders, coaches, and authors who want to get the book done right. 113+ books authored. 54+ ghostwritten for clients.
Ready to discuss your book?
BOOK YOUR PRIVATE CONSULTATIONNo pitch. No pressure.
© 2026 Richard Lowe. The Writing King. All rights reserved.
