Today marks the anniversary of the best Black Friday deal I’ve ever gotten. I didn’t realize this until just a few weeks ago when my wife and I were talking and doing some marital math. As the math teachers always said, “You have to show your work.” So, stick with me while I show you my work and how I concluded that I got the best Black Friday deal ever.
We all know what Black Friday is. “The first use of the term Black Friday was tied to a financial crash, much like the 1929 stock market crash was known as Black Tuesday. The second is an unflattering nickname for a day rife with traffic and shoplifting.
It all starts in “Philadelphia during the 1950s and ’60s. Crowds of people would come to town the day after Thanksgiving for the annual Army-Navy football game held the following Saturday. Streets and stores were always packed, which was great for business but made easy pickings for shoplifters.
“Local police called this Black Friday—and for good reason. Not only did they have to deal with extra traffic and shoplifting, but they also had to work extra hours and couldn’t request the day off.”
“So why do they call it Black Friday when referring to day-after-Thanksgiving sales?
“When the term spread across the nation in the late 1980s, the definition changed. While retailers generally suffered financial losses most of the year, the surge of holiday shoppers marked the first day of real profit. In traditional accounting practices, losses were recorded in red ink, and profits in black ink. And that’s why the day after Thanksgiving, when companies go “into the black” and make a profit, became Black Friday.”1
As a 19-year-old young man in 1986, I’m sure I had heard of Black Friday but had no participation in the annual melee of frantic shoppers. Instead, I had one item I was “shopping” for – a wife.
Thanksgiving 1986 was on Thursday, November 27th. Friday, November 28th would have been Black Friday that year. At the Lincoln Memorial, LaRue County, Hodgenville, KY, I had taken Miss Vickie about halfway up the stairs. It was a chilly day, and I was wearing a beige trench coat. We sat down on one of the concrete benches, presumably to give her an early birthday present (her birthday is December 1st). Instead of the sweater that her friends told her was coming, I asked her to marry me and gave her an engagement ring.
Why do I remember that I was wearing a beige trench coat? Because she started crying – tears of JOY, not sadness – and as I was holding her, mascara ran on my coat. It never came clean.
Why am I telling you this story today? Because this is our 37th wedding anniversary. We were married on December 19th, 1987. A snowstorm had hit the area, but the wedding went on regardless. As my wife and I were talking about Black Friday shopping this year, we realized that we had gotten engaged on Black Friday, 1986.
See? The best Black Friday Deal ever!!!!!
Thank you for taking the journey down memory lane with me. Even though you m
ay not have gotten married or engaged on a Black Friday, I hope you can honestly say that it was the best deal you’ve ever received.
Proverbs 5:18 says, “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.” Solomon repeats this thought in Ecclesiastes 9:9. Today, if you are married, capitalize on these truths. Practice them with passion from the heart. Read what Solomon had to say.
“Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.”
1https://www.rd.com/article/history-of-black-friday/
Images are taken from https://pixabay.com/, https://www.pexels.com/, or https://unsplash.com/images or created in Windows Copilot. According to the websites, they are Royalty Free and free to be used for our purposes.
