LINCOLN: NO RESPECT
Do people under the age of 40 know that February 12th is Lincoln's birthday?
FEBRUARY - What a Month!
February
was a great month for school-age children when I was a kid. There would
be Lincoln's birthday, a holiday, a day off from school. Two days
later, back in school, and zing! -- Party!-- Valentine's Day! I always
liked having the "make the Valentine's Day mailbox" task for my
classroom. All it really meant was gussying up a box, making a
mail-slot, bring it to school, and all the kids would post their cards
in it.Then would come Washington's birthday (on
the 22nd, although this site says Washington was actually born on the
11th, which would have created a two-day holiday for schoolkids!),
a national holiday, another day off from school. My eldest sister's
birthday is the day after Washington, and my other sister's birthday is
also earlier in the month.
To a school kid in my family, February was
always quite a blast. Cakes, parties, days off from school, even a
party in school for a goofy day of kiddie romance and heart-shaped
candies with silly sayings on them.
This was the month most resembling life as it was in Leave It To
Beaverland. And what could have or would have seemed more appealing
than to live life as it appeared to take place on Leave It To Beaver?
Throw
in a few snow days, Ground Hog Day, and those enticing few days in
February when there's that little hint of Spring coming, right around
the corner,and this makes for a great month to be a kid.
NIXON SCREWS THINGS UP
In
1971, Nixon (you remember him: the president who resigned in dishonor
and shame) got rid of the two separate days of celebration and honor
for Presidents Washington and Lincoln, and created President's Day.
But this is not a day intended to honor Washington and Lincon. Rather,
as per Nixon, it is intended as a day to honor all Presidents. Yep,
that would even include Bush the Elder, McKinley, Ford, and even Nixon
himself. Horror of horrors, it would even include the imperial occupier
now holding the office.
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES
Washington
is generally accepted as the great American hero, the "Father of Our
Country," the man who "slept here" all over the place. That guy and his
wooden teeth slept around. If Washington had been a women, he slept in
so many places they (the Puritans!) would have branded him a slut and
made him wear a scarlet letter!
Turns out, though, that we kids
raised in NY and other areas were a little more fortunate than our
fellow kiddie citizens in The South. Back down there where they refer to The Civil War as The War of Northern Aggression,
Lincoln's birthday was never celebrated. No holiday, no joy over this
great man (he with the monument in the nation's capital), no waxing
poetic over his accomplishments, his famous address at Gettysburg, his
childhood growth from poverty roots to the highest office in the land.
If anything, John Wilkes Booth's shooting of Lincoln in The Ford Theatre was more likely to get some note and hoopla.
NO RESPECT
Free
the slaves, lead the nation, orate and write speeches quoted for
centuries, create legislation of note, marry and stand by a crazy woman
. . . do all that, and what happens?
Nixon erases the holiday,
Southerners hold him in contempt to this day, and more school kids may
know the name as a major city in Nebraska. Not even the state capital,
just a major city. Or a pricey car, sometimes with Continental or
Navigator attached to it.
And, of course, something to do with logs.