…or should that be Presidents’ Day?

Well, whichever one it is, today’s the day.  It is of course a holiday and many of us are off work; yippie!

When I was a kid in school, we didn’t have President’s Day.  Instead we had Lincoln’s Birthday on February 12 and Washington’s Birthday on February 22, and if both of them missed the weekend we had two days off from school; everyone who wasn’t a Mom loved that!  Now of course, in order to provide workers with a three-day weekend we have today… whatever it is supposed to be for.

I am usually a bit of a contrarian; I think that Washington and Lincoln deserve to be remembered, for both of them played vital roles in the establishment and building of our Nation.  In fact, I would dare to go so far out to the “extreme” (you know where that is, it’s “out of the mainstream”) as to say that we have lost something of our heritage in seeming to forget their contributions to our Nation!

So, here’s a thought:  Why not take a few minutes sometime in our day off today to look back and reflect upon our Nation’s presidents… all of them.  Many of them were very good people who wanted to improve the country and the lives of its citizens.  A few were just plain great; Washington and Lincoln are certainly among those.  Some of them were more than a little rough around the edges, engaging in colorful speech and actions.  Some of them were entirely untrustworthy… and still others never wanted to be there at all. Together they paint of picture of us all.  They had the same faults and talents that we the people have.  They made many of the same mistakes that we all make, had triumphs and tragedies like we all do.  They had sleepless nights, lost loves and depression at times, yet they kept on going…

And of course a certain number of them came to the point when they realized in private that they couldn’t carry all of the load of their responsibilities alone and fell to their knees before God.  If you look very carefully, you will discover that the ones who did this ended up being the ones who went down in history as truly great, while the ones who never came to that point didn’t quite make the cut of greatness.

Huh, I wonder why that is?