Remember the what? Lots of dates mean lots of different things

This Saturday, we're going to hear what a momentous anniversary it is of such an important event. If any newspapers or electronic media outlets fail to mention it, they will doubtless catch hold hell from people.

"How could you fail to mention the 71st anniversary of D-Day?

"Some dates should never be forgotten."

Well, we forgot February 15th.

In fact, we pretty much forgot that one before I was born, but on the Ides of February in 1898 the battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor and provided an excuse for us to go to war with Spain.

I've heard "Remember the Maine" before, but never with a date attached to it. That particular February day in 1970 has always had a special significance to me because ....

Well, shucks.

Jumping for joy? Nah, 1966

I guess the most delicate way to say it is that was the day I first experienced one of the great pleasures of adulthood.

Before you find yourself thinking what an incredibly guy thing it is to remember the exact date of that particular event, I have to say the reason I remember the date is that it was well after midnight after a really great Valentine's Day party.

And unlike D-Day or the Maine, no one died.

There were a few times I sent the young lady involved e-mails. After all, the date had the same significance for her than it did for me. She's a judge now in a state far from Georgia and I have seen her exactly once since 1970. It was the 2000 Democratic Convention at Staples Center in Los Angeles. I was there as a newspaper columnist and she was a delegate.

Joyful? Yes, me in 1970

But as a country, there are so many dates we try to remember and others we would prefer to forget. We still make a big deal out of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, but I rarely hear anyone making a big deal out of April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King was murdered.

The fact is, we tend mostly to remember events that happened during our own lives. There's no one alive who actually remembers the Maine, and ever-shrinking numbers every day who remember Pearl Harbor or D-Day. In fact, far fewer than half of Americans now alive remember any of the eventful happenings of the '60s.

Even Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974 only has meaning to a minority.

Probably the oldest major event that more than half of the country actually experienced was the Challenger disaster in 1988, and then there was Oklahoma City on April 19th, 1995. The great irony of that one is that if my first marriage hadn't failed, that day would have been my 20th anniversary.

Then of course there's Sept. 11. But long before the Twin Towers and My Pet Goat, Sept. 11 was the birthday of two of the greatest football coaches ever -- Bear Bryant and Tom Landry. In addition, Brian DePalma, Virginia Madsen and Kristy McNichol were born that day.

In a world of 7 billion people, dates mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

But I'll still remember February 15th fondly.

Oh, one weird note there.

It's also my mother's birthday.