Today is more than just a day off from work.

It’s a day to GOLF too!  Duh, helloooo?

Bad lower-back and all, I will be playing my first round of golf of 2012 on Victoria Day Monday afternoon at Ballantrae Golf Club with my newly-engaged buddy, Tucker.  I can’t wait to find out how he pulled the trigger on the proposal…

Victoria Day dates back to 1845 – before Confederation, when the “Province of Canada” recognized the Queen’s Birthday on May 24th.

How old was the old dame on that first celebration of her birth?  Try twenty-four years old.  A cynic might ask what she had accomplished by that age to warrant a celebration of her birthday, but luckily, I’m not a cynic…

One thing you may or may not know about Queen Victoria – something she has in common with Jerry Lee Lewis, is that she married her first cousin: Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

You know something, they just don’t make names the way they used to!

All this time I’ve been going by “David Fleming,” and where has it gotten me?  I could be using “His Realtor David Fleming of The Lower Toronto Confederate.”  That has a nice ring to it…

Queen Victoria died in 1901, and the 24th of May was renamed “Empire Day” in her honour.  I’m not sure why changing the name to something other than her own name is considered “honouring,” but I digress…

In 1952, the format we use today was adapted, whereby we celebrate the holiday on the Monday before May 25th.  Empire Day was renamed “Commonwealth Day” in 1977 and moved to the second Monday in March, which meant that the Monday before May 25th was back to being “Victoria Day.”

Sound confusing?

It is.

But I guess back in the day when you used a feather dipped in ink, to write, everything was complicated as hell.

Happy Victoria Day, everybody!

Drive safe.

And putt well.  Take your time, line it up, read the break correctly, and follow through with the club-head.  Better to go past the hole than to leave it short.

Oh – yeah, drive safe too, like in your car.  Gotcha.