A Thought For Friday the Thirteenth

From L. Frank Baum's The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913):

"I'm Ojo the Unlucky," replied the boy. "I might have known I would fail in anything I tried to do."

"Why are you Ojo the Unlucky?" asked the tin man.

"Because I was born on a Friday."

"Friday is not unlucky," declared the Emperor. "It's just one of seven days. Do you suppose all the world becomes unlucky one-seventh of the time?"

"It was the thirteenth day of the month," said Ojo.

"Thirteen! Ah, that is indeed a lucky number," replied the Tin Woodman. "All my good luck seems to happen on the thirteenth. I suppose most people never notice the good luck that comes to them with the number 13, and yet if the least bit of bad luck falls on that day, they blame it to the number, and not to the proper cause."

Jukebox Gifts by Dean Wesley Smith

I mentioned this on Twitter and Facebook yesterday, but I wanted to make sure to note it here as well.

Writer Dean Wesley Smith routinely posts stories of his on his website for free for a period of two weeks, and at the moment he's offering Jukebox Gifts, which first appeared in the January 1994 F&SF. It's a wonderful, sentimental story, that moved me deeply when I first read it, and I highly recommend it to all.

That said, having now re-read it sixteen years after I first saw it, I find that I react somewhat differently to the choices the characters make in the story. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but back then, I still had my mom around, and I wasn't a father. My perspective on the story has changed a lot because of who I am now.

If anyone wishes to discuss the story after reading it, I'm game. So be warned, that there may well be spoilers in the comments.