East Coast Kahuna

Is 13 unlucky?

Some folks consider 13 to be an unlucky number - and I find it almost amusing how some people go so far out of the way to avoid using this number. Look at buildings without a thirteenth floor...this is even sillier when a building has a ground floor and a first floor or multiple lower levels. Why bother skipping thirteen? For me thirteen is a fine number - my wife and I were married on the 13th of August and we just recently celebrated our 29th anniversary.

Our country started with 13 colonies and thus, there are 13 stripes on our flag. Of course, it wasn't long before we grew and the number of stars on the flag changed from 13. But look at it this way - they used to change the number of stripes as well, but since this got to be too many, it was switched back to 13 for good.

The moon mission, Apollo 13 was the one which had problems - but the crew returned to earth safely. Speaking of the moon, there are 13 full moons in a year - it's possible that the calandar was originally 13 months but evolved to 12 months to eliminate 13.

Friday the 13th in any month is considered unlucky by many (although all it means to me is that the 1st of the month was on a Sunday). But look how well the series of movies with that title did at the box office. And it's the 13 that people don't like, not the Friday. TGIF.

Anyway, it can't think of a reason that Asians would dislike the number thirteen. Maybe it's my ancestry which makes me adamant about how there's nothing wrong with the number. On the other hand, my daughter sustained three sports injuries in a row (1 sprain and 2 minor fractures) in the month right after her 13th birthday which put her out of commission from softball for seven weeks. Go figure...

posted by tjh14850 @ 7:20 AM