Of all the discoveries, innovations, and inventions in the history of the world, I think we'd agree one of the ones that most of us enjoy the best is the three-day weekend and, glancing at the calendar, I see we have one coming up this weekend.
I can remember as a kid we had off from school on both Lincoln's Birthday and on Washington's Birthday (we also heard from the sixth graders 'they don't celebrate Lincoln's Birthday in the South because of The War'). Children of the Baby Boom, and part of the cohort that was in the first part of that boom, I'm not sure all my classmates understood exactly which 'the war' those sixth graders were talking about.
We had, after all, learned to duck under our desks and turn away from the windows during the air raid drills we seemed to have on a daily basis. I wasn't that old when something happened in Cuba, or near it, that scared the willies out of the grown-ups and we started having drills at school almost every day. Still, I didn't understand what war "the South" was angry about until catching a TV show (I think on ABC) on Saturday afternoons about The Civil War. It turned my world upside down.
I think we're all similar in that we are, each, the center of our own universe, and we assume the world as it is, is how it's always been. The idea that some of my classmates in Mrs. Hilge's 3B would have been considered property a hundred years earlier struck me as surreal. As I grew older (not matured) and I learned how prevalent slavery was, and in some places still is, and how much carnage the so-called Civil War created (and maybe, even more, a century and a half after it ended), the more profound became my admiration for Mr. Lincoln.
Who didn't already admire the Father of Our Country, George Washington (though I never did figure out who the mother was)? The chopping down of the cherry tree, the crossing of the Delaware River, "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." It was amazing to me as a schoolchild to have had two Presidents born in the same month with such a profound impact on our country.
And now, see how we run. We have a Monday holiday to honor all of those who have been President including Warren Harding, Millard Fillmore, and James Buchanan. I'm sure each, well and lesser-known, has had a hand in making us who we are today. So far, all we've elected to the Presidency are men, and only white men, with the exception of Barack Obama in 2008.
I still believe I live in a country where anyone can grow up to be President and that, more than any specific person who's ever been President, is why I celebrate this holiday. It's not a reason to go to the mall and clean up on the post-Valentine's day stuff at Victoria's Secret (in light of those outfits where would Victoria keep anything secret anyway?).
I think it would be proper and appropriate to find a moment and spare a thought for the tens of thousands of our best and brightest young, and not so young, men and women we have across the globe in far-off places that are in the news much too frequently as well as the far more numerous places whose names we struggle to pronounce who protect, among other things, the rights of all daydreamers to imagine they, too, could grow up to be President.
As Teddy Roosevelt said, "Believe you can, and you're halfway there."
-bill kenny
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