Slipped our minds.

Now that it's June 4, the truth can be told.

We had to cancel Talk Like Slip Mahoney Day.

He's pissed. 

For the past couple of years, June 2, the date of Leo Gorcey's death, has been the day we've celebrated by talking like his famous character Slip Mahoney. But this year we have had to cancel that special day. I didn't have the heart to mention it on June 3---Gorcey's birthday.

Why did we cancel it? Was the storm too hard, the sleigh couldn't get through?

No, as hard as it is to believe it, Americans have failed to rise up in force and start blabbing malapropisms in Brooklynese. How can this be, when so many are willing to talk like a pirate on September 19?

Well, I still think it's because malapropisms are hard. To make a good one, you really have to know the meanings of the words you are misusing. Frankly, any dummy can go "Arrr" and "Avast ye" and "Blow me mizzen" or something, but to sound dumb in a clever way you have to be smart.

Leo Gorcey was a lot of things, and many of them not good, but he was not a dummy.

Oh, well. Holidays don't always last. Abraham Lincoln's birthday has been lumped into an all-purpose Presidents Day. Victory Day was last celebrated in 1975. Ireland dropped Whit Monday from its bank holiday calendar in 1973. Talk Like a Grizzled Prospector Day (January 24) and International Talk Like William Shatner Day (March 22) have failed to gain the traction they deserve.

God rest your soul, Leo Gorcey. Give our regads to da poily gates. Hushed in the abalone arms of Death / Our young Marsupial sleeps. Recapitulate in pace. See yez in the funny papuhs.