Category Archives: Holidays

Giving Thanks

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Today is America’s primary pagan festival again, celebrated to show love to the gods for a bountiful harvest on a New England day in which fields are now mostly covered in snow and which George Washington proclaimed as a day of thanks as a national remembrance.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness’.”

While it is easy for this curmudgeonly writer to kvetch about the corruption and thievery stretching from here to Washington or to fret about the desk I write at, those are just everyday irritants and (thankfully) I know how to fix them.

I am thankful my grandfather at age 94 decided to live out his very good life in the Keys.

I am thankful I have the ability, the tools, and the wherewithall to fix the roof of the house my grandfather and parents lived out their very good lives in the Keys in.

I am thankful I started my life as an engineer and am now spending some of it as an artist.

I am thankful that Anu reminded me of a word and a writer (The Tontine by Thomas B. Costain) I have enjoyed since I started eating turkey at the grownup table.

I am thankful we will have friends here today.

I am thankful my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren are happy, healthy, and will be well fed again today.

I am thankful Anne is here today and will be here tomorrow.

I am thankful for Anne and for Nancy, two loving, caring, beautiful ladies. I am blessed.

And I have pah!

This column mostly appeared last year because being thankful goes on year round. The original Thanksgiving Perspective is here.

 

Memorial Day

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Today is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday once known as Decoration Day commemorates the men and women who perished under the flag of this country, fighting for what sets our America apart: the freedom to live as we please.

Holiday is a contraction of holy and day; the word originally referred only to special religious days. Here in the U.S. of A. “holiday” means any special day off work or school instead of a normal day off work or school.

The Uniform Holidays Bill which gave us some 38 or 50 Monday shopaholidays moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. Today is not May 30 but perhaps we can shut up and salute anyway.

Editorial cartoon from Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Lest we forget, the Americans we honor did not “give their lives.” They did not merely perish. They did not just cease living, check out, croak, depart, drop, expire, kick off. kick the bucket, pass away or pass on, pop off, or bite the dust. Their lives were taken from them by force on battlefields around the world. They were killed. Whether you believe they died with honor, whether you believe our cause just, died they did.

Today is not a “free” day off work or school. Today is not the big sale day at the Dollar Store. Today is a day of Honor.

2,180 U.S. men and women have died in Afghanistan since 2001.

More than 656,000 Battle Deaths have occured since the U.S. was founded.

“All persons present in uniform should render the military salute. Members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute. All other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Citizens of other countries present should stand at attention. All such conduct toward the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.”

The American flag today should first be raised to the top of the flagpole for a moment, then lowered to the half-staff position where it will remain until Noon. The flag should be raised to the peak at Noon for the remainder of Memorial Day.

There are those in this country who would use today to legislate the man out of the fight. They can do that but the men and women we honor today knew you cannot legislate the fight out of the man. They have fought and they have died to protect us from those who would kill us. And perhaps to protect us from those who would sell out our birthright.

There is no end to the mutts who would kill our men and women in uniform even faster than they would kill their own. And there is no end to the mutts in our capitol who would let them. If I had but one wish granted on this day, I wish not another soldier dies. Ever. But die they did around the world again this year and die they will. For us. For me.

Because those men and women died, I get to write these words again this year. And you get to read them. You get to rail about Islam or Presbyterianism or Frisbeeism without fear of the government. And I get to read it. Please pause and reflect as you go to a concert, stop at an artist’s studio, grill a burger, or simply read a book in the sunshine the price we pay to keep our right to do those things. Thank a soldier today. And then do it again tomorrow.

Editor’s Note: This column is slightly updated from one that appeared first in 2008.

 

Thoughts for President’s Day

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Banks and post offices are service businesses, same as movie theaters and restaurants.

Liz Arden and I both ordered new phones. Hers is scheduled for delivery today; mine allegedly shipped today. And a laptop SWMBO ordered is sitting at the post office. We can’t pick that up until tomorrow.

“I think FedEx does not necessarily follow bank holidays,” she said.

CalendarThat’s right. FedEx and UPS both provide normal pickup and delivery service on these national holidays:
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Presidents’ Day
Good Friday
Columbus Day
Veterans Day

Today’s holiday was changed to the third Monday of February in 1971 in compliance with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. Advertisers morphed the name into “Presidents’ Day” because the federal observance of Washington’s “birthday” must fall between February 15 to 21 and never include Lincoln’s birthday nor Washington’s.

Public Law 90-363 amended the the United States Code to move holidays on Mondays. The Act moved Washington’s Birthday (originally February 22), Memorial Day (May 30), Columbus Day (October 12), and Veterans Day (November 11) from fixed dates to designated Mondays so federal employees could have more three-day weekends.

Members of the Armed Services don’t get three-day weekends.

“Thank goodness they don’t drag me out on Monday mornings,” Phil told me earlier this year. If Candle Mas Day is bright and clear, There’ll be two winters in the year. I guess even Congress was smart enough not to condemn us to a Monday and six more weeks of winter all on the same day.

There was a time, back before you were born, back when I walked to school, uphill both ways, that most companies followed the same holiday schedule as the federal and local governments and that schedule matched actual birth and event anniversaries.

“Not so much any more,” Ms. Arden said. In fact, her workplace has pared official holidays down to New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, the Day after Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day.

They did give back, with three or four “floating” holidays. Some employees use them for celebrations like One Ring of Sauron Day. Others bunch them up around Christmas.

I liked that change as long as they didn’t shortchange us in the process. We’re (mostly) still getting 10 days off which was about the norm I remember. We’re paid for 260 workdays in a non-leap year but we typically work no more than 240 of them and usually have some paid “sick” days as well.

“I do like the flexibility,” she said but it irks her that not to get mail delivery on days she has to work, and the bank is never open on a day when she needs to replace a lost credit card. “I want everyone to follow my schedule, dammit! Except, of course, if I’m taking a holiday I want businesses I use to be open.”

A decommissioned Russian satellite is headed for home and an asteroid the size of three football fields will do a flyby today.

Today is also Rene Russo’s 60th birthday and not George Washington’s no matter what they said in Congress or on weather.gov.

And despite all that, I still need to write a blog and a newspaper column and do laundry.