Presidents’ Day

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February 16, 2015 (Monday)
The Birthday of Abraham Lincoln (February 12) was remembered last Thursday and George Washington’s Birthday (February 22) will be celebrated next Sunday. However, the third Monday in February (today) has been set aside to observe Washington’s birthday as a federal holiday. It has been known as Presidents’ Day since 1968, and is becoming a day to celebrate all the presidents. The legislation creating it is known as the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, affecting several federal holidays.
Retail merchants are fond of special sales for these birthdays.

They also like sales for New Years, Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, along with sales celebrating Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Groundhog Day lures customers to stores in all cities. Valentine’s Day sales are common, as are Mother’s Day sales and Father’s Day sales. Local fairs and celebrations get sales named for them, too. We could go on. Sometimes the sales are better known than the special days being celebrated. Almost any occasion will do if it brings in more business. “Business is business,” or as we Texans have been known to say, “Bin’ness is bin’ness.” Capitalizing on special days set aside for other purposes moves products and makes money.
Between merchants’ special sales and our own desire to get away, enjoy family time and have some fun, the basic purpose of a given holiday may be mostly forgotten. When we stop and think about that, some of us get a little sad, especially when it’s a day to honor those who have made our freedoms possible, and in many cases have died or been disabled in our behalf. We would probably be wise if we would emphasize the meaning of our special days more than we sometimes do.
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ROW 1
George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
ROW 2
James K. Polk
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James A. Garfield
ROW 3
Chester A. Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
ROW 4
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
ROW 5
George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama
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