President's Day—not!

Today is President's Day, a U.S. federal holiday that celebrates all of our country's presidents. Or so I thought.

In researching the holiday's history, I came across some enlightening information on Snopes.com. This is really, officially, the "George Washington's Birthday" holiday, just like when I was in grammar school when we used to get a day off for both his birthday on February 22 and Abraham Lincoln's birthday on February 12. We're supposed to be celebrating George's birthday. Not all the presidents.

It turns out that the Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968 officially set the third Monday of February as the day to celebrate George's birthday. This means that federal workers (and students) always get a 3-day weekend—but it also means that George's birthday is never actually celebrated on his birthday, because the third Monday can never fall later in the month than the 21st. And most of the states dropped Lincoln's birthday, because the bill also established Columbus Day as a new federal holiday.

Of course, a 3-day weekend also means bargains at the local shopping centers. In its depleted and messy shelves, Stonewood Mall tonight showed the ravages of three days of sales and shopping.