Friend,
Here are five things that caught my attention!:
Happy Thanksgiving: I hope you had a great Thanksgiving–one of my favorite holidays. We escaped to the mountains and enjoyed a wonderful day and a needed pause to relax and focus on all the reasons we have to be thankful!
Black Friday History: I was curious about the origin of the term “Black Friday”. I had heard it was named that because retail stores could finally break into the “black” with all the spending the day after Thanksgiving. However, upon a little research that isn’t quite right. It ties back to gold speculation that sent our economy crashing and then later irritated Philadelphia cops having to deal with rowdy Army-Navy fans and too much traffic. History.com does a pretty good breakdown here.
Franksgiving: The history of Black Friday is nowhere near as interesting as the time FDR sided with retailers in moving Thanksgiving a week to try and spur retail spending. The formal announcement was a bit late. Chaos ensued and wait for it…people divided along political lines on if it was a good idea or a bad idea:) Hopefully they all had turkey, took a nap and watched football–regardless of which date they celebrated. For me, I would have just done Thanksgiving twice!
Secretary Pete Back in SD: Last week, we were happy to welcome the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg back to San Diego to talk about how federal, state, and local partners are moving the Otay Mesa East Port of Entry project forward. Thanks to federal funds provided by the Department of Transportation, under Secretary Pete’s leadership, and President Biden’s infrastructure law, we can look forward to a new port of entry that will save truck drivers almost 2,500 hours every day, and will have economic and productivity benefits up and down the supply chain. It’s always good when an old friend is in town, and it's that much better when it's for an announcement that will improve the region’s economy for decades to come.
Tweet of the Week: Aisha Wahab is a new member of the California State Senate! Her tweet about coming out of the foster care system was moving!
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