[MARCH 21, 2000]  A couple of us lingered at the office after five on a Friday, discussing the calendar and other topics that occurred to us, from the possibilities of dry root rot as a tongue twister to the difficulties of choosing new frames for eyeglasses.

Since we started by paging through the photographs on a United Parcel Service calendar, we were looking at UPS.

I noticed another "up" item on the Veterans of Foreign Wars calendar in my cubicle. A circle in the calendar square for March 20 indicates that we’ve just had a full moon. An almanac source listed it as occurring at 12 a.m. EST. Considering the time zone difference, I guess that’s why my car calendar says the full moon was March 19 instead.

The March 20 square on my office calendar notes the first day of spring. Another name for it is the vernal equinox. At an equinox, there’s equal day and night, 12 hours of each, since the sun’s rays fall directly on the earth’s equator. With Leap Year’s extra day in February, the equinox happened a bit earlier this year than usual. An almanac listed the time as 2:35 a.m. EST on March 20.

So we have a special date for the full moon up there and for the sun shining right in the middle.

Incidentally, this helps explain why Easter is so late this year. A council back in the year 325 A.D. decided how to set the date. It can range from March 22 to April 25 and depends partly on the moon, partly on the sun. There are differences in the actual and nominal dates for the vernal equinox, but basically the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the beginning of spring is designated as Easter. Since the moon was full just before spring officially started, we’ll have to wait for the next full moon before we have Easter Sunday.

As I looked at my kitchen calendar, from Caterpillar Inc., I wondered about a special label in the square for March 21. Not all calendars show the birthday of Benito Juárez, as it’s a day of significance especially in Mexico. That suggested a way to complete my up-middle-down sequence of calendar events. From the perspective of Lincoln, Mexico is down on the map. (Admittedly, the equator is farther south, but it’s still in the middle of the earth’s latitude lines.)

I checked a standard encyclopedia and a couple of history books from the library to find out about Benito Juárez. I learned that he was a revered leader south of the border and a contemporary of our own Abraham Lincoln.

Like Lincoln, Juárez came from humble beginnings. He was a Zapotec Indian, born March 21, 1806, in the state of Oaxaca in the southern part of Mexico. His parents died when he was 3. He worked as a sheepherder for an uncle; then left for the city of Oaxaca when he was 12. There he was a household servant for a bookbinder, who educated him. He studied law and became respected as a defender of the poor.

Unlike Lincoln, Juárez was a short, stocky man. He typically dressed in a black suit, white shirt and black bow tie. He was known to be determined and consistently courteous. His wife said that he was "homely but a very good man."

Juárez entered politics and became governor of his state. Later, in the Mexican War of Reform shortly before the U.S. Civil War, he acted as president for the liberals in conflict with conservative church and military factions. He eventually became the elected President in Mexico City, but the country was invaded by France and temporarily ruled by Emperor Maximilian. President Lincoln recognized the Juárez government rather than the monarchy, however.

When the French withdrew and the emperor was executed, Juárez was extremely popular. He was again elected President in 1867. He worked to improve conditions in Mexico and also improved relations with the U.S.

Like Lincoln, Juárez was reelected but didn’t live to complete much of the second term. He died of a heart attack July 18, 1872.

The city of Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas, is named for him, and he has been referred to as the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico.

[Mary Krallmann]