“How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!”
Thomas Jefferson
Stars and Stripes…Forever
Have a wonderful, safe holiday everyone!
Washington’s Birthday
That’s PRESIDENT Washington to you…
“The Prayer at Valley Forge” by Arnold Friberg
…and me.
“In the pantheon of our republic’s founders, there were many outstanding individuals. And yet each of them—Franklin, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison—acknowledged Washington to be his superior, the only indispensable figure, the one and only “His Excellency.”
So, you know about the small problem I have with our planet messing up the holidays that we had when I was a kid–right? And it’s likely that you thought I was finished since my last rant. Sadly…no.
Tomorrow is the official day that the world should celebrate President George Washington’s birthday…mainly because, the 22nd of February is his birthday. Duh. But since it doesn’t always obediently fall on a Friday or Monday so that we can have a 3-day weekend, SOMEBODY thought they’d just move it.
Who’s in charge of that anyway? I mean who has the power to just change somebody’s birthday to a more convenient time? Is it the all powerful Birthday King or something? I’d just like to know. *Who decides this stuff? It is just so weird.
Well, I’ve devised a simple way to make myself feel better. I’m just having a little celebration all by myself. I’ll read some quotes and stories about President Washington and probably, my family will be forced to participate as well. But I have a feeling that they’ll be respectful, and humor me and they’ll be fine.
Besides, this event involves lots of crumbles, and cherries…
…and pie.
That ought to do it.
Happy Birthday President Washington
~~~*~~~
*In 1971 President Richard Nixon combined Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays into a single federal holiday. Good grief.
The Bald Kid’s Take…
on President’s day.
So “Bruce” and I are having this conversation.
I say, “President’s Day?”
And he says, “Yeah, President’s Day.”
I say, “Don’t you mean Honest Abe Lincoln’s Birthday where you cut out silhouettes of his face and make log cabins with pretzels and read stories about walking 5 miles to return a book and about abolishing slavery?”
And he says, “No. President’s Day.”
And I say, “Don’t you mean His Excellency, President George Washington’s birthday where you cut out silhouettes of his face and make cherry tarts and read stories about chopping down trees and telling the truth and about crossing the Deleware with his freezing soldiers?”
And he says, “No. President’s Day.”
And I say, “Who’s birthday is that?”
And he grins and says, “Who cares? We get a day off of school.”
And my brain says….tick-tick-tick—–
KABOOM!
It’s a good thing he was kidding.
Switching a 17-year-old to home school could really put a chink in his chain.
Note: The characters in this story are real. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Veteran’s Day
~ Veterans Day, which used to be known as Armistice Day is a national holiday that falls on November 11, and is set aside as a day to honor combat veterans who fought and died for their country.”
I’ve never known much about this particular holiday because it doesn’t seem like people pay much attention to it. There are flags on many of the houses and and businesses in town-but since the kids aren’t out of school–even that doesn’t normally get my attention. It’s always just been one of those random holidays that I mixed up with the other ones– Memorial Day, Labor Day, Veteran’s Day.
So after some guilt induced research on the subject I learned that Veteran’s Day marks the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I. Ok, fine…well done…the ending of a terrible war. But here’s the part that surprised me.
In 1938, Congress passed a bill that each November 11 “shall be dedicated to the cause of world peace and …hereafter celebrated and known as Armistice Day.
I love the phrase, ‘dedicated to the cause of world peace.’ So, I looked up World Peace and came up with tons of sources. There were hundreds of World Peace sites, World Peace photos, and even a World Peace cookie recipe. I especially enjoyed the World Peace quotes:
“The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.”
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)
“Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.”
— The XIVth Dalai Lama
But even those great words from good people left me feeling very hushed and small on a loud, angry planet. I want to help–I do. So we recycle, and conserve energy, and carpool, grow a garden, and try to compose, and make hats for struggling babies, and filter our water, and hand make whatever we can…I could go on and on.
But world peace? That’s a big one.
Then I found a few other words that shrunk the world back to a smaller, more manageable size for me. One that helps me feel strong and settled and able to make a difference again. This one:
“If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
This, we can all do…
…and change the world.
