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August is my favorite month, because it has the best holidays. Two tax-free days, of course, but there are bigger and better holidays in this month named for Roman emperor Augustus.

Friday, Aug. 10, is a special day for me. It's the feast day of San Lorenzo, or St. Lawrence the Librarian.

Believed to have a list of the members of the early church, he was captured by the Romans, tied to a spit and slowly grilled on what is now the site of the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Rome.

Some historians say he maintained his humorous outlook on life to the end, telling his tormentors at one point that he was done on one side and needed to be turned.

St. Lawrence today is known as the patron saint of cooks and chefs. His feast day is celebrated by librarians and archivists with - guess what? - cold cuts. Hey, I don't make this stuff up. I couldn't.

A couple of Thursdays from now, Aug. 16, is St. Armel's Day, the saint invoked to ward off headaches and rheumatism.

And the first Monday after the close of the harvest weeks, probably Aug. 27 this year, is known as Sorrowful Monday. It was the day the farm laborers resumed their normal routines, with their normal allowance of drink. During the harvesting they could drink their fill.

Sometimes we have a whole month of Sorrowful Mondays, don't we?

Yesterday, by the way, Aug. 4 was the traditional day for The Burryman's Parade in Scotland.

The Scots of South Queensferry believed that bad luck clung to you like burrs, and during bad fishing seasons a fisherman was dressed in flannel, covered with burrs and paraded through the village in a wheelbarrow.

Don't you just love those Scots.

What a world

We live in a world where you have to wonder how a people so intent on murdering each other, can field a group of men of different faiths who can work together effectively enough to win the Asian Cup in soccer.

Where voters in a congressional election in Argentina cast votes for Homer Simpson of the Donuts and Beer Party. Where a president will spend $1 trillion on a war but vows to veto a bill extending health insurance to 3 million poor and lower-income children at a cost of about $50 billion over the next five years.

And am I the only one pleasantly astounded we're empowering Iraqi women by training them to be police officers and then arming them.

Fahrenheit 451

"We all know that books burn - but we have the greater knowledge that books cannot be killed by fire." - Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Big Read, Attleboro's 1ABC project, has selected "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury as this year's book for the community to read and discuss. Join us.

P.S. See the clue in last Sunday's crossword, "Werner of Fahrenheit 451"? The answer was Oskar, the protagonist in the film who ... Well, never mind. You'll get a chance to see the movie this fall as part of the 1ABC project.

See you next week.

ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Sun Chronicle and The Siilver City Bulletin. Reach him at 508.236.0394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com.

See you next week.

ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Silver City Bulletin and The Sun Chronicle. Reach him at 508.236.0394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com.

Shannon and Linda Smith said "Hi from Denver" by dropping off Denver papers fr me at the Taunton Public Library.

Gail Coelho also dropped off papers at the library. "My husband and I took a day trip to Provincetown," she writes. "We enjoyed it, especially the Pirate Museum and Race Point."

Someone also anonymousl;y dropped off papers from Anchorage and Fairbanks in Alaska, and from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Thanks to Sue Bessette from the Larson Senior Center in Attleboro for a copy of The Oregonian from Portland.

"I would like to comment on one feature of this newspaper which my wife brought back from Denmark," writes Sterling Alam of Attleboro. "I wish all newspapers would begin each artucle with a bold type introductiry paragraph as this one does. It could be written so as to encourage the reader to want to know more. It would be an advance over the common habit of reading the paper by reading headlines only."

"We could have brought papers from Sweden, Norway, and Finland and Estonia as well," adds Julie Sophos. "However, they were not in English and space in our luggage was limited." She notes they travelled by airplane, bus, train and ship.

"I've been collecting these forever!" writes Andrea Soucy of Plainville in a note with a stack of papers and magazines from Vermont. "They should stand as proof that the Northeast Kingdom isn't as bucolic and idyllic as some seem to think."

ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Sun Chronicle. Reach him at 508-23600394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com