Hey! It’s National (fill in the blank) Month!

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Always room for more on the “National Month/Day” bandwagon.

If you’re a fan of raisin bread, this is your month. Ditto for lovers of peanut butter, stamp collecting and pepper. If bittersweet chocolate with almonds is your passion, sorry, you get just one day, Nov. 7.

Sandwich fans also get just one day, Nov. 3, the birthday of the Earl of Sandwich. Guess what he invented?

This business of designating months and days after worthy causes and dubious foods came to my attention with what at first glance looked like junk mail. It was an e-mail MEDIA ADVISORY (capital letters always mean something is REALLY IMPORTANT), alerting the press that the “King of Corned Beef” in Bellevue was celebrating National Sandwich Day with a mile-high speciality — a corned beef sandwich containing one pound of meat. Attached was the unnecessary visual of the mountain-of-meat sandwich.

I didn’t know there was such a day, which got me to wondering what else I was missing. A diligent search of the Internet yielded a bumper crop of reasons to celebrate November, beyond that day dedicated to thanks and gluttony.

Many disease prevention and eradication organizations kick off fund raising campaigns this time of year, which explains Awareness Month designations for lung cancer, muscular dystrophy, CPR, diabetes, hemophilia, epilepsy and pancreatic cancer.

While sandwiches get one day of recognition, Hunger Awareness, Good Nutrition and Vegan Awareness get the entire month. That seems fair, given that much of the month is consumed with preparations for one day of eating roasted meat, marshmallow-coated yams and pumpkin pie smothered in whipped cream.

Perhaps the Vegan Awareness folks need to contact the “King of Corned Beef” for an intervention.

If you’ve ever had a hankering to learn to fly, write a novel or take up philately (that’s stamp collecting), now’s the time to do it. It’s Aviation Month, National Novel Writing Month and National Stamp Collecting Month.

The novel writing category is novel in itself — a friend sent me a suspiciously chain-looking e-mail on the subject recently. The goal is to write a 175 page, 50,000 word novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. The idea is quantity, not quality. There’s no wrong way to write, you just do it. No endless editing or coffeeshop critiquing. Writers gather on the organizer’s Web site, www.nanowrimo.org, to talk about their work and the process. Maybe next year.

While some of these National designations are sanctioned by the federal government in order to draw attention to worthy causes, the provenance of others is a bit sketchier.

I suspect Georgia pecan farmers have something to do with National Georgia Pecan Month, but I haven’t been able to locate the source of National Peanut Butter Lover’s Month. It is featured on a site sponsored by Skippy peanut butter, but there’s an unmistakable whiff of Jiff on the trail.

I also couldn’t figure out who designated Nov. 7 as National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day, although it was noted on many, many Web sites. Seems that when it comes to chocolate no none is asking questions.

While chocolate only gets one day in November, it is celebrated numerous times throughout the year. There are three National Chocolate Days, Oct. 28, Dec. 28 and 29, and national days for chocolate mint, chocolate chip, chocolate eclairs, milk chocolate, chocolate covered raisins, chocolate pudding, chocolate custard, chocolate ice cream, chocolate milkshakes, and my favorite, the all-inclusive National Chocolate Covered Anything Day. That’s coming up next month, Dec. 16, if you want to mark it on the calendar — and who wouldn’t?