Vol. II, No. 92 From Our Region to Yours
Culture

In My Day, Being a Grouch Was a Full-Time Job, Not a 'National Day'

Today is National Grouch Day. Our senior editor has observed it every day since 1971 and would like to know who authorized the competition.

By 2 min read

A small black sign on a lawn warning that the site is protected and that trespass on it is a criminal offence.
A lawn sign of the kind our senior editor considers a good start. Photo: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

THE BACK PORCH — I have been informed by the electric rumor that today, October 15, is National Grouch Day.

I was not consulted.

I have been a grouch professionally since 1971. Some say since 1952. I say since the Coolidge administration, when I was a cub reporter and the newspaper cost a penny and was worth two. Nobody gave me a day. Nobody gave me a cake. In my day, you earned your grouchiness one rainy Tuesday at a time, and you were grateful for the rain.

Now, I am told, anyone may be a grouch for twenty-four hours and then go back to smiling at strangers. This is amateur hour. A grouch is not something you are on a Thursday. It is a calling.

The young people on the copy desk tell me the day honors a puppet who lives in a trash can. I have nothing against the puppet. He keeps to himself and he does not have a podcast. That is more than I can say for our markets reporter.

But the trash can is the problem. In my day, a man who lived in a trash can was a cautionary tale. Now he is a holiday. Next they will give one to the fellow who leaves his shopping cart in the parking lot, and the copy desk will ask me to write a tribute.

I will tell you what a real grouch does on National Grouch Day. He does what he does every day. He reads the newspaper front to back, folds it the correct way, and writes a letter to the editor about the crossword. I am the editor. I write back. I do not read it first.

A real grouch does not need a greeting card. If you send me one, I will return it with the spelling corrected.

A real grouch remembers when a holiday meant something, like Arbor Day, when we planted a tree and then complained about it for forty years. That tree is still standing. So am I. Neither of us is happy about it.

So to those of you observing National Grouch Day for the first time this year, I say welcome. Sit down. Stop smiling. The coffee is cold, and it was cold when I made it.

And get off my lawn. That is not a holiday greeting. That is a standing order.

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