If the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield were a month, he’d have been March.

March gets no respect. No respect at all. It is cold, dreary, and endless.

Winter-lovers inhabiting the northern hemisphere hate March. Seeing the third page of the calendar means the impending end of the skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, and ice fishing seasons. Not only that, but as winter recedes larval forms of scourges like ticks and mosquitoes begin stirring, readying for their annual assault upon any and all vulnerable warm-blooded animals, including outdoor-activity-loving human beings.

March shouldn’t have an inferiority complex. Every other month is only a proper noun, but March can be a regular one (e.g., funeral march) as well. And it’s the only month that can function as a full-fledged verb, although May claims auxiliary status in that area. March could have been an adjective, too….if it had been willing to subjugate itself by accepting a lower case first letter and pretentious alternative pronunciation, like august did.  

For centuries the proud third month of the Gregorian calendar looked down haughtily on its immediate predecessor, since over the course of a decade March can contain as many as 27 more days than February. But the diminutive second month towers over March in American historical significance. George Washington, the father of his country, and Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, were both born in February. Presidents born in March include the eminently forgettable John Tyler, an obscure, unelected chief executive who at the end of his life was serving in the Confederate Congress, and Grover Cleveland, who fathered a child out of wedlock twelve years before marrying a woman 27 years his junior in the White House.

March’s only “holiday” honors the saint who allegedly chased the snakes out of Ireland, but also introduced the March 18th hangover to the rest of the world. And anyone connected with education, be they student, teacher, or other staff member, loathes the year’s third month, since there are no school holidays, vacations, teacher workshops, half-days, three-day weekends, or anything remotely resembling time off during the entire 31 days. (Note: while March is arduous for school attenders, educators and students should exercise judiciousness regarding who, if anyone, they complain to about this state of affairs. Iron workers, nurses, poultry farmers, retail clerks, chefs, truck drivers, and police officers are just some of the professionals notorious for having a hard time empathizing with those whose annual work schedule consists of approximately 180 days.)

The month’s few distinctions are sour ones. Osama bin Laden was born in March, as were Nazi holocaust architects Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele. The Boston Massacre happened in March, as did the My Lai Massacre and the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor disaster. And why Shakespeare write, “Beware the Ides of March?” The Ides was the date on the Roman calendar marking the approximate middle of the month. There are a dozen of them every year, so why is the only one anyone remembers March’s, infamous for the literal and figurative backstabbing of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Reputable historians should commemorate President Lyndon Johnson’s passionately advocating for the Voting Rights Act in 1965 by telling Congress “We shall overcome,” the first-ever collegiate women’s boat race (between Oxford and Cambridge) in 1927, or Maine’s becoming America’s 23rd state in 1820. All those great events occurred on the Ides of March!

Why don’t they mention the tragic Ides of July 1888, when nearly 500 people were killed by a volcanic eruption in Japan? Or the dreadful Ides of October 1793, when Queen Marie Antoinette of France was sentenced to death in a hastily-arranged sham trial? Or the horrible Ides of May, 1718, when London attorney James Puckle patented the world’s first machine gun?

Then 11 years ago some Washington bureaucrat decided Daylight Savings Time would commence annually on the third month’s second Sunday. As a result of clocks “springing forward,” March loses an hour, and thus is actually a full 60 minutes shorterthan its 31-day brethren January, May, July, August, October, and December. In fact, it’s only 22 hours longer than 30-day November, which gets a bonus hour on its first Sunday each year. That Arizona, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands don’t use DST is small consolation to March’s few remaining advocates.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the third month was born under an unpropitious star.

My sainted mother urged me to say nothing at all if I couldn’t say anything good about someone or something. The good thing I can say about March: it’s my second-favorite month.

My favorite?

The other 11 are tied.