What's happening tonight is a genuine once-in-a-blue-moon event, and it's got me humming:

Bump-a-doo-da, bump-a-doo-da, Bump-a-doo-da, bump-a-doo-da...

Come on, tell me that doesn't take you back to childhood and a rare chance to plunk on your great-aunt's piano keys. No? Well, maybe you have to be "a certain age" to recall when music was mostly homemade and every kid wanted to play pop music.

Next to "Chopsticks," I'll bet more would-be parlor entertainers started out with "Blue Moon" than any other song. I can remember the elation of discovering that the same vamp worked for "Heart and Soul," but "Blue Moon" was absolutely the sentimental favorite.

Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone, Without a song in my heart, Without a love of my own.

So longing. So romantic. So silly, for a pre-teen.

(I looked up the lyrics on the Internet, and was surprised to find that it was popular a decade before I thought it had been written. What year was "Blue Moon" among the Top 10? Tell you later.)

If you pay attention at all to matters of the moon and calendar, you must have seen recent articles about the meaning of that term, "blue moon." Generally understood now to mean "seldom," the term may have begun life meaning "an impossibility."

One source likened the 16th century expression, "The moon is blue" to our rejoinder, "Yeah, and pigs can fly," or "She'd argue that black is white," or "That will happen on the 12th of Never."

Blue Moon, you knew just what I was there for. You heard me saying a prayer for Someone I really could care for.

There have, of course, been instances of the moon turning blue, as when the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa sent so much dust into the atmosphere that the moon appeared shaded for nearly two years, or, in 1951, when smoke from forest fires in western Canada shrouded the skies of the eastern provinces.

No one seems certain when "once in a blue moon" became a popular idiom, although probably by the middle of the last century it had come to mean a rare occurrence.

It would seem, however, that another meaning emerged as recently as 50-some years ago, when someone linked the term "blue moon" with the uncommon event of a single month having two full moons. One folklorist, searching extensively for when it was first used in that way, was referred to a 1943 Maine almanac. But he was unable to find a copy in print.

A 1946 edition of "Sky & Telescope" magazine is supposed to have contained a note about it, and a radio broadcast about astronomy may have revived the double full-moon meaning of the term in the 1970s. With no certain mention earlier than that, the researcher pronounced this application of "blue moon" "a truly modern piece of folklore."

And then you suddenly appeared before me, The only one my arms will ever hold.

I heard you whisper, "Please adore me," And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold.

So how does a month get two full moons? Simple enough. Even though our word "month" derives from "moon," we've divided the year roughly into twelfths, and a month is really a twelfth of a year based on a solar calendar.

The moon's actual cycle runs from extremes of 29 days, six hours, to 29 days, 20 hours say 29 and a half days, on average. It's easy to see how, if a full moon falls on the first or second day of a 31-day month, there'll be another on the 30th or 31st, the so-called "blue moon."

This doesn't happen often in fact, only once every 2.7 years, thus becoming a worthy metaphor for an infrequent event.

But here's where it gets interesting. Two blue moons occur in one calendar year only once in about 19 years, and even less often back to back. That's what's happening today. Step outside this very evening and take a look at the second blue moon of 1999.

On New Year's Day, the moon was full, so the first blue moon fell on Jan. 31. Then, skipping February, the moon was full on March 2 and again tonight.

While there are 12 calendar months in a year, there are actually about 12 and one-third lunar cycles in a year, so you can see why the date of the full moon slides around from one month to the next. February's having no more than 29 days makes it the only month short enough to be skipped by a full moon altogether.

Don't miss it. The last time two blue moons occurred in one calendar year was in 1980, and before that, in 1961. You'll have to wait until 2018 for it to happen again, and then 2037.

Blue Moon, now I'm no longer alone, Without a song in my heart, Without a love of my own...

When was "Blue Moon" on the Top 10 list? In 1935, along with "Stardust," "Red Sails in the Sunset," and "When I Grow Too Old to Dream."

No wonder I heard it at Kroger last week on Senior Discount Day.

Back to the Top of the PageBack to the Weekend Home Page