It is Sunday, February 19 and there are only 277 days until Thanksgiving, just enough time to start thawing the turkey so it will be ready to cook.  Today we remember the birthdays of Nicolaus Copernicus, Constantine Uschinsky and Paul Dean.  On this day in 356 Emperor Constantius II shut all heathen temples, in 1878 Thomas Edison patented the gramophone and in 1913 the first prize was inserted into a Cracker Jack box.  In Gabon it is Constitution Day, in the US it is National Chocolate Mint Day and tomorrow is Presidents’ Day.

Presidents’ Day is an American holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February.  Originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington, it is still officially called “Washington’s Birthday” by the federal government.  Traditionally celebrated on February 22—Washington’s actual day of birth—the holiday became popularly known as Presidents’ Day after it was moved as part of 1971’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers.  While several states still have individual holidays honoring the birthdays of Washington, Abraham Lincoln and other figures, Presidents’ Day is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents past and present.

The story of Presidents’ Day date begins in 1800. Following President George Washington’s death in 1799, his February 22 birthday became a perennial day of remembrance.  At the time, Washington was venerated as the most important figure in American history, and events like the 1832 centennial of his birth and the start of construction of the Washington Monument in 1848 were cause for national celebration.

President's Day never falls on the actual birthday of any American president.  Four chief executives - George Washington, William Henry Harrison, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan were born in February, but their birthdays all come either too early or late to coincide with Presidents’ Day, which is always celebrated on the third Monday of the month.

The shift from Washington’s Birthday to Presidents’ Day began in the late 1960s when Congress proposed a measure known as the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.  Championed by Senator Robert McClory of Illinois, this law sought to shift the celebration of several federal holidays from specific dates to a series of predetermined Mondays.  The proposed change was seen by many as a novel way to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers, and it was believed that ensuring holidays always fell on the same weekday would reduce employee absenteeism. While some argued that shifting holidays from their original dates would cheapen their meaning, the bill also had widespread support from both the private sector and labor unions and was seen as a surefire way to bolster retail sales.

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act also included a provision to combine the celebration of Washington’s Birthday with Abraham Lincoln’s, which fell on the proximate date of February 12.  Lincoln’s Birthday had long been a state holiday in places like Illinois, and many supported joining the two days as a way of giving equal recognition to two of America’s most famous statesmen.  Realistically, we know that the day is actually a day when fake presidents offer us deals on furniture, cars and mattresses.  That concludes this week’s offering for your useless information file.

As you may recall, last week I decried the use of the word irregardless.  I pointed out that there is no such word and that the word that should be used is regardless.  I have tried to start a movement to ban the use of the word.  Irregardless of my efforts to date, the word continues to worm its way into our vernacular.  Please, if you hear someone use it, correct them.  Be polite.  Say something like, “You know that is not a word. You shouldn’t use it because it makes you sound like a dumb***.”  Or something equally as nice.

I have a number of issues with the way people pronounce words.  Take, for example, the word comfortable.  It is not a difficult word to say – com-fort-able.  Yet just this past week I have heard two different pronunciations and neither was correct.  I heard one person, in a commercial, say the furniture was very comfterble.  I also heard a person being interviewed say that a situation made them uncomftable.  The person in the commercial has no excuse.  They are reading from a script.  How do you see comfortable and say comfterble?  I must be the only person who finds this bothersome.  If so, I apologize for wasting time on it.  If not, then we need to speak up!  Thank you for bearing with me.  I will climb down from my soap box for now.

One more quick point for you to think about.  As I watch TV in the evenings, I see a lot of commercials for new medicines.  It seems that they are churning out medicines as fast as they can come up with names for them.  One of the stipulations they give is that you should not take the medicine if you are allergic to it or its ingredients.  My question is that if I have not taken it yet, how do I know if I am allergic to it?  Another question is have they come out with a medicine in the past five years that does not cause nightmares and suicidal thoughts?  Just wondering.

This week our fact is one that my Barbara will like.  Every man in Brainerd, Minnesota is required by law to grow a beard.  Once again I find myself wondering what happened to cause that law to be passed?  When I read the fact, I sat and pondered it for several minutes and could not come up with a reason.  If anyone knows, please pass the information on.

Now, go have a chocolate mint and have a good week.