I always used to think taxes when I thought of April 15th. I still think about taxes when I think about the day, because I had just loyally paid my taxes for 2010 on April 15th of 2011 when the federal government shut down my primary source of income. Before the ink was even dry on my check, they were like, “Oh, thanks for the money. You don’t need to make any more of this, do you?”

So now the words Black Friday come to mind when I think of April 15th. But in thinking about the bad shit that’s happened on this day, I like to temper that with some of the good. It was 65 years ago today that Jackie Robinson played in his first big league game. That was a big deal, and it was a good thing.

While racial tensions still exist in the US and throughout the world, humans have made solid progress as a social species. Compared to biological evolution, social evolution works remarkably fast. People still do a lot of hateful and ignorant things, but looking back half a century gives me hope for half a century from now.