Regarding the controversy over the date for Halloween, I have a suggestion:

Let’s have two Halloweens. Remember the fuss over Thanksgiving’s date in 1939? That year Thanksgiving would not fall until Nov. 30, the last Thursday of the month. President Franklin D. Roosevelt suggested the date be moved a week earlier to Nov. 23, the fourth Thursday. Businesses would benefit from the new date. Sound familiar? Hard as it is to believe now, stores would not put out their Christmas decorations or merchandise until after Thanksgiving so having an extra week could help the economy, still mired in the Depression.

Not everyone liked FDR’s idea. Half of the states changed and half kept the old date. In Wisconsin, Republican Gov. Julius Heil swore to keep Nov. 30 but Mayor Hoan in Milwaukee followed FDR. Banks and Protestant churches agreed with Heil; federal workers and the trades and labor council sided with FDR and Hoan. Catholic churches said they would go along with Nov. 23 if FDR made his suggestion a proclamation, and the public schools said they would honor both dates. So the fourth Thursday was set by proclamation and in 1941 Congress agreed to the fourth Thursday nationwide.

If 1939 is remembered as the year with two Thanksgivings, why not remember 2009 as the year with two Halloweens in Kenosha?

John Valaske