There is a very nice article on why we celebrate Presidents Day, why we celebrate it when we do and why it’s a good time to buy a mattress here. It has to do with our first President’s birthday, which was on 2/11 but got changed to 2/22 when we changed calendars. Started on 2.22, it turns out that wasn’t convenient for corporations, so it got changed to the 3rd Monday of February. It’s supposedly a good time to buy a mattress because you’ve just gotten a tax return, which doesn’t even make sense. Who gets a tax return in February?
I don’t know about the mattress part but this Presidents Day, I thought about how I would feel being President. My guess is awful. It’s a job that doesn’t seem like much fun to me. You have to get up very early in the morning, I like to wake up at noon.
And the meetings, OMG, the meetings! I don’t like any meeting that has more than 3 people attending and there needs to be a written agenda.
I don’t like dressing up, if I can’t wear blue jeans I’m not going. If it’s a bit of a dressy occasion, I wear black jeans.
Solving world problems does sound interesting to me but it doesn’t seem like much of that happens in government.
I’m thinking that wanting to be President might be an automatic disqualifier. Maybe there should be a lottery where we draw a name each 4 years.
For a short history, musical and visual on James Polk this song by They Might Be Giants is great!
One of these became a real recorded song:
A great protest song and Stevie's ode to Nixon: