I'm incredibly depressed.
Sucker Day has been cancelled this year. That's like cancelling Christmas (well, not quite, but almost). In case you don't know about it, Sucker Day is a celebration held every year in the small town of Wetumka, Oklahoma, usually in the late summer. It commemorates the day in 1950 when the entire town was suckered by the con man J. Bam Morrison. Morrison arrived in town claiming to be the advanceman for a circus that would be arriving on July 24. People would be coming from miles around to attend this circus, he promised, presenting Wetumka merchants with a potential chance to make lots of money. He claimed that if the merchants bought advertising space on the circus grounds, the circus, in return, would buy their supplies exclusively from Wetumka merchants. And he assured everyone that there would be a huge amount of supplies being purchased. Pretty soon all the advertising space was sold (cash paid directly to Morrison, of course), and then, (surprise, surprise) Morrison split town. July 24 arrived without any circus. So the residents of Wetumka, realizing they'd been taken for a ride, decided to hold their own celebration anyway, with a parade and street fair. Thus the tradition of Sucker Day was born, held every year since, until now. I called up the
Wetumka Chamber of Commerce to ask why they cancelled it, and the man on the phone said it was due to a lack of sponsorship. But he promised that they'll be holding it again next year, though they're probably going to move it to the early summer. For more info about Sucker Day, check out this
Sucker Day Song. Plus, here's the
schedule from last year's Sucker Day, as well as a
newspaper article about the day (evidently prepared before they cancelled it). If you feel like celebrating your own Sucker Day (perhaps you got suckered somehow this year... lost a bunch of money on a sure-thing investment, or realized your girlfriend/boyfriend was cheating on you), then July 25, this Friday, would be close to the historical anniversary. An appropriate form of celebration would be to drink yourself into a pleasant state of numbness as you dwell on what a sucker you are.
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