A recent book by Michael Arkush tells about the fight of the century between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. In the book he refers to 5,500 fans in Pittsburgh watching the fight outdoors at Three Rivers Stadium in 18 degree weather. I was one of them along with two friends. I was a freshman at Point Park College and we decided to go. Through the winds, the cheers and the sipping of coffee we did indeed witness an event which I have never seen duplicated. No Super Bowl or World Series or any any boxing match comes close in the anticipation of that night. When they were in their corners before the bell sounded I was almost shaking with nervous excitement. Being an Ali fan I was disappointed that he lost but the memory of that night lives on. I wonder if I will ever experience a sporting event like that again.
Black Friday is the name given to the day following Thanksgiving, which is traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, most major retailers open extremely early, often at 4 am, or midnight or nowadays on Thanksgiving night. To work that turkey off they have promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but judging from commute time and crowds in stores you might think so. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005 although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time. The news media has long described the day after Thanksgiving as the busiest shopping day of the year. In earlier years, this was not actually the case. According to wikipedia in the period from 1993 through 2001, for example, Black Friday ranked from fifth to tenth on the list of busiest shopping days, with the last...
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