Wednesday, April 18, 2012

National High Five Day



(Google Image) 
By Diane Forrest

You've done it...I've done it....you can do it in public, or in private, with one person or a group of people. You can do it in the morning or at night, in the summer or winter.  In fact you can do this almost everywhere at any time.  I'm talking about giving a high five.

(Google Image) 
The high five is a celebratory slapping of hands used to congratulate someone.  It replaced the hand shake or pat on the back in several areas such as sports or school.  In fact, the term "high five" is said to be coined at a baseball game.  On Thursday, April 12, 2012, a friend of mine's son bowled a perfect series, a 900. Which are 3 games at 300 points each, or 36 strikes.  This accomplishment has only been achieved 20 times since 1997. John Martorella, from Rochester, New York stunned the bowling center Domms, where this record was set, and stunned the world of bowling with this feat.  He is shown here with congratulatory high fives from his team mates after the magic moment.     There are many origin stories of the high five, but the two best documented candidates are Glenn Burke of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team on Oct. 2, 1977, and Wiley Brown and Derek Smith of the Louisville Cardinals basketball team during the 1978-1979 season.

(Google Image) 
The creation of this special day dates back to 2002. It was created by college students at the University of Virginia. Those students were Conor Lastowka from San Diego, California, Sam Miotke of Corvallis, Oregon, and Wynn Walent of New York City. They celebrated with lemonade and a profusion of High Fives.


Now there is even a website about high five's...you can check it out here:  http://www.nationalhighfiveproject.org/

There has been an attempt to replace the high five with a "fist bump” but, it hasn't caught on as well, at least not in my part of the world.  The most famous fist bump was between the Obamas when he won the presidential election as pictured above. But, today is National High Five day, so make someone's day and give everyone a high five.

For a cool song video about National High Five Day, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOaStrQAC88

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