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Richard Crowson: Black Friday

During the dust bowl, I know from watching Ken Burns’ recent engaging PBS documentary, they had Black Sunday. It was the day of a devastating dust storm that blackened the sky. 300 million tons of topsoil blew away in that single event.

In 1987, Black Monday was when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 508 points.

1929’s Black Monday and Black Tuesday saw a market crash that led to the 10-year Great Depression.

Britain had a Black Wednesday in 1992 when the British Sterling was devalued.

Black Thursday was May 6, 2010, when the stock market “flash crashed,” losing and regaining 1000 points within minutes.

And, yes, there have been Black Saturdays. Among them was the Black Saturday in October of 1962 when the Cuban Missile Crisis reached the peak day of its stress.

Compared to all of those black days through history, our Black Fridays are relatively benign. Hopefully no one will be blown away like our 1930s topsoil, or will crash and burn as did the 1929 stock market.

But if you really want to turn Black Friday into something with genuine significance and avoid Cuban Missile Crisis levels of stress, the Kansas Humane Society has a new Black Friday event. It’s a day for adopting the often-slighted and usually wonderful black dogs. There’s no adoption fee for this one day.

Scientists tell us that our blood pressure drops when we pet dogs.

That’s in contrast to the way it spikes when we fight crowds at retail outlets.

I’ll take dogs over bargain-crazed shoppers any day. Especially on Black Friday.

Richard Crowson is not only a editorial commentator for KMUW. He's also a cartoonist, an artist and a banjo player.