There is a local car dealership running ads on heavy rotation to promote their Presidents’ Day auto sales. I always thought that Presidents’ Day was about George Washington and Abe Lincoln, but I swear they are showing an image of Thomas Jefferson in their ads.
So either they are mistaken or I am, which led me to a search of the Internet. Good ol’ Snopes.com sheds some interesting light on the whole thing, link to the info below.
I’ll summarize what I’ve learned – there used to be a day for Washington and a day for Lincoln. Then somewhere along the way someone had the bright idea to combine them into one day. And I guess it was originally all about George, and Abe got tacked on at some point. That’s ok, Abe was a good dude.
So my takeaway from all this is that now instead of having two days off, I get one day off. Honestly, I’ll take it, February is a short month anyway. But still.
The other thing that is clear from this story is that these presidential holidays have been tinkered with, a lot. The dates keep changing, they get combined, they get separated, they combined again … there are federal days of observance but then each state can also have its own special days.
Why do we keep messing with this? Congress is busy.
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/presidents/presidentsday.asp
No clear ruling on whether it’s Presidents’ Day or President’s Day.
And, none of this has anything to do with Jefferson, thankyouverymuch.
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Here's the thing - we don't even get the dang day off here! In AZ we got screwed out of MLK, and in Texas we get screwed out of Presidents' day! Even the kids are in school. Seriously not happy.
ReplyDeleteI think I should have gotten credit in this post for doing the research on P-Day. I mean, it took me at least 2 minutes to find that. Sheesh. Some people.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I have to work on Monday and the kids don't have school. Cue: Bring Your Sons to Work Day! Hijinks typically ensue, including arguments about why I don't want them playing with my action figure collection.
ReplyDeleteSons: "But these are kids' toys."
Me: "Not these. These are my toys."
Sons: "You're too old to play with dolls."
Me: "How dare you?"
Leslie, that suks. Another example of why we need to have a countrywide standard for this, and it should include at least two days off to honor our fine past presidents. And everyone should get MLK day off too.
ReplyDeleteARF, I wish you would wear your hat-cam during these unofficial Bring Your Sons to Work Day, you should be sharing these hijinks with the world via YouTube.
ReplyDeletePS ARF it was completely unintentional that I did not give you credit for the Wash/Linc research. As in so many things you are my muse and font of information. So in the interests of full disclosure and giving credit where credit is due, this blog post was a result of an email conversation with ARF about which presidents Presidents' Day was meant to honor, and she dug up the Snopes info that I referenced. Thank you
ReplyDeleteThank you for your blogknowlegement. And, I worry that if I activate the hat-cam, the recordings will eventually be used against me in court proceedings.
ReplyDeletedoes it help to know that I've already started a legal defense fund for you and some of our other friends? or at least I've thought about it.
ReplyDeleteNew word: blogknowledgement.
As they say, it's the thought that keeps people out of prison...
ReplyDeleteNow that Johnny C is gone, we all have to keep our noses cleaner.
ReplyDelete