"When Black Friday falls you know it's got to be... Don't let it fall on me" - Steely Dan

Black Friday is here! It's the day celebrated by merchants across America as their chance to put their profit statements in the black, which is their term for making money, which is why they're in business, no matter what impression they try to give you.

It's interesting to look back on a day when The Day After Thanksgiving was regarded as a day to stay home, watch football, eat leftover sandwiches (putting stuffing on a sandwich is almost as cool as using pizza as a pizza topping >>>>>) and wait for the plumber, since Thanksgiving Day is the #1 clogged-drain day of the year.

The term "Black Friday" originated in Philadelphia, among police and bus and cab drivers and anyone else trying to deal with the shopping  and traffic frenzy that happened in the early 1960s. Beside all the shopping, there was the Army-Navy football game, which used to take place on the Saturday after Gobble Day at Franklin Field.

The City Fathers up there in the City of Brotherly Love were alarmed at the negativity being connected to the merry sound of cash registers registering cash by the truckload, so they tried to float the names "Big Friday" and "Big Weekend" as substitutes.  But those names did not, in fact, float.

The original, first, and most famous Black Friday occurred on September 24, 1869, when two financial wizards, Jay Gould and his partner James Fisk attempted to corner the market on the New York Gold Exchange. It turned out that Gould and Fisk had gained the confidence of President Ulysses S. Grant, who had about as much business being president as the man in the moon did. The economy of the United States, still recovering from the Civil War, went into a tailspin for years after this scandal.

The next historic Black Friday was so horrible that it was held on a Tuesday so as not to wreck anyone's weekend. We're speaking of October 29, 1929, when a decade of insane financial practices following World War I led to the first stock market crash, which led to the Great Depression. So many people had bought stock "on margin"  - meaning without money they actually had - that when the bills came due, everyone looked at everyone else to pay, just like when everyone goes to Applebee's for a big lunch. 

It's hard to think of Black Friday as a boon to business with that history behind the term, but for those of you heading to the malls today - and to the REAL malls of today, your keyboards - here's a reminder that tomorrow is Small Business Saturday.  Why not spend a little money at that local craft store or yarn shop or ma-and-pa photo developing place instead of helping Wally World crush the competition?