Boxing Day to most people means nothing. (Maybe to a few Brits and Canadians, but not to the guys catching gators on reality TV, I suppose.)
Some holidays go out of style or out of communal consciousness like Armistice Day for WWI (ultimately enveloped into Veterans Day, some years back.)
Simply flipping through a calendar can highlight the plethora of holidays that may mean something to SOME BODY but most probably means NOTHING to EVERYBODY - if that makes sense.
Presidents Day.
Now there's a real goofy holiday. It's the day when all the "midget" US Presidents no longer have their historical feelings hurt because the GIANTS of February keep being remembered by all of us: Lincoln's BDay (on the 12th) and Washington's BDay (on the 22nd) speak of starts and saves.
Now, Franklin Pierce is no longer angry in the afterlife for being simple, I suppose.
Well, Americans across our great land got the day off on Monday, Presidents Day.
Most likely, as a Nation we did zero to remember the 44 presidents (actually 43 men - one was elected twice with another fellow in between - Google it.)
Except to go goof around.
That's what I did with my bride.
I FB'd about my day - mentioning nothing about Presidents Day. I came home had a great lunch and dinner with my girl. Didn;t even count up to 44. Somewhere in the middle of the day climbed up Table Rock MOUNTAIN (ok, it just felt like it was a mountain - man was I tired when we were done!) I never gave a fleeting thought to the men who climbed the mountain of the prsidency.
Oh, but I did do something. I finished "The Presidents Club" by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy.
I've been working on this 641 page
work of wonder for a bit. Gibbs and Duffy are to be commended. Four years of their lives - trips all across the universe for tidbits of truth and tons of tactile teaching. Someone else long ago may well have designed the Presidential Seal, but these two gifted authors/researchers filled the podium behind that seal with real live men - men who worried, loved and lost. Men who won, counted the ghosts of what could have been and left office forever changed.
From Truman to Obama, the formerly unheard of stories of America's Ex-Chief Executive officers take on a polish unseen and unlustered - unheard of prior to this book.
The Presidents Club gives a reason for Presidents Day 2013, 2014 and beyond. More accurately, it sets the stage for a better, almost more meaningful day - every day's holiday - Ex Presidents Day. For indeed, once the new President is sworn in, the now-ex POTUS' job is just beginning.
Start the book NOW! You'll be ready for next year's Presidents Day, 364 days from now.
Den
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