Author: Glenn Hauman

Sigh… it seems to happen earlier every yea– What? How could you forget that the third Monday in May is Miracle Monday? Elliot will be very disappointed in you…

If you have no idea what I’m talking about (Ma nishtana ha-laila ha-zeh mi-kol ha-leilot) [[[Miracle Monday]]] is the third Monday in May. It’s from a Superman novel of the same name written by Elliot S! Maggin and published in 1981. I highly recommend reading it, if you haven’t read it before. Here’s a taste:

On Miracle Monday the spirit of humanity soared free.  This Miracle Monday, like the first Miracle Monday, came in the spring of Metropolis, and for the occasion spring weather was arranged wherever the dominion of humanity extended.

On Uranus’s satellites where the natives held an annual fog-gliding rally through the planetary rings, private contributions even made it possible to position orbiting fields of gravitation for spectators in free space.  On Titan, oxygen bubbles were loosed in complicated patterns to burst into flame with the methane atmosphere and make fireworks that were visible as far as the surface of saturn.  At Nix Olympica, the eight-kilometer-high Martian volcano, underground pressures that the Olympica Resort Corporation had artificially accumulated during the preceding year were unleashed in a spectacular display of molten fury for tourists who walked around the erupting crater wearing pressurized energy shields.  At Armstrong City in the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility there was a holographic reenactment of the founding of the city in the year 2019, when on the fiftieth anniversary of his giant leap for mankind the first man on the Moon returned, aged and venerable, to what was then called Tranquility Base Protectorate, carrying a state charter signed by the President of the United States.  The prices of ski lift tickets on Neptune inflated for the holiday.  Teleport routes to beaches and mountains on Earth crowded up unbelievably.

Interplanetary wilderness preserves became nearly as crowded with people as Earth cities.  Aboard the slow-moving orbital ships that carried ores and fossil materials on slowly decaying loops toward the sun from the asteroids, teamsters partied until they couldn’t see.  On worlds without names scattered throughout this corner of the Galaxy, where Earth’s missionaries, pioneers and speculators carried their own particular quests, it was a day for friends, family, recreation and-if it brought happiness—reflection.

But why did it become Miracle Monday? And what was the first miracle? Go get a copy and read.