COLUMN: Friday the 13th is not a day to be trusted

By my calculations, I have lived through 120 Friday the 13ths in my lifetime.

That’s 112 more than my youngest grandson, who will turn 5 years old next month.

My first Friday the 13th showed up when I was four days old. I don’t remember it. I was still in the hospital. Like every other baby of my generation, spending that first week in the maternity ward and riding home in an ambulance were standard procedure. 

Times have certainly changed. Now, having a baby is like outpatient surgery. There’s a drive-thru and DoorDash for everything.

No, I don’t remember my first Friday the 13th or many of the others. For the most part, they have been non-eventful. 

Oh, I’m sure there have been some dreadful days. I probably flunked a test in high school or struck out a couple of times in a Little League game. But I shrugged it off.

 I feel certain some girl broke my heart when Friday fell on the 13th. Or I might have had a flat tire on the way to work. Que sera, sera.

Friday the 13th is not a national holiday like Thanksgiving or Memorial Day. It is not celebrated, like Valentine’s Day, Christmas or the Fourth of July.

It jumps around on the calendar from year to year, a wildcard with no routine. This year, it is in June. Last year it fell in September and December. Next year is a mother lode year. There will be three of them – in February, March and November. You have been warned.

I have never understood why we should treat Friday the 13th any differently than, say, a Thursday the 12th or Saturday the 14th. Friday is typically one of the week’s most popular days. It’s the end of the school and work week, the on-ramp to the weekend.

 But when Friday collides with the number 13, it’s a day that cannot be trusted. 

About one-fourth of Americans identify as superstitious. They don’t get out of bed or travel on Friday the 13th. They don’t walk under ladders, step on cracks or break mirrors. They have an anxiety attack if a black cat crosses their path. 

There are a few unwritten rules when the 13th falls on a Friday. Don’t get married.  Don’t schedule surgery or start a new project.

History has had a way of being unkind to Fridays. Bible scholars point out that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Eve offered Adam a slice of apple pie on a Friday. Noah was forced to evacuate the high waters on a Friday. 

Disasters have made the headlines and the top of the news on Fridays.  Joan of Arc was toasted on a Fry-day. Napoleon was Waterlooed. Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were assassinated. Andrew Johnson was impeached.

Thirteen started getting a bad rap when Judas showed up as the 13th guest at the Last Supper.  There is another legend that Friday was named after the Norse goddess Frigga, who was banished as a witch when the Norsemen became Christians. Frigga held weekly meetings on Fridays — there were no Zoom calls back in those days  — with 11 other witches and the devil. 

And lest we forget Friday the 13th in 2020 when President  Trump declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a national emergency, and the pandemic officially began.

We tend to magnify anything that goes wrong that day. We want to point the finger when there are plane crashes, bombings, cyclones, blizzards and the stock market goes down because people aren’t out there spending money.  

That’s why No. 13 remains a curse. Many high-rise buildings skip the 13th floor. Some hotels don’t have Room 13, and airlines don’t have a 13th row.

Here is a head’s up. On Friday the 13th in April 2029, an asteroid is projected to come within 18,000 miles of Earth. 

It’s not going to crash but go ahead and plan your day now.

Ed Grisamore is not superstitious but he has been doing a lot of overthinking since seeing a black cat last week.