 |
| Carter Family: "It takes a worried man to sing a worried song," |
With the Twin Cities (my neighborhood) awash in ads for
celebratory sales, I’m thinking about President’s Day to be celebrated across
the US tomorrow, the third Monday of February, and I only vaguely recall the
origin of this holiday. Never fear. I refreshed my memory by reading an article
by Lauren Himlak at USParks.about.com.
Lauren reminds us the holiday originally commemorated the birthdays of Lincoln,
Feb. 12, and Washington, Feb. 22, and was only later designated as President’s
Day, which falls on Feb. 16 this year.
Himlak explains:
Today, President’s Day is well accepted and celebrated. Some
communities still observe the original holidays of Washington and Lincoln, and many
parks actually stage reenactments and pageants in their honor. The National
Park Service also features a number of historic sites and memorials to honor the
lives
of these two presidents, as well as other important leaders.
Continuing to follow up my Google search regarding President's Day, I came across a
recently updated essay by Bill Moyers
that movingly connects us with Abraham Lincoln:
Ordinary folks caught in the undertow of events. We could use that kind of empathy today. As Washington obsessed all week over the fate of one nominee to the cabinet, and as we watched hearings about the failure of watchdog agencies going to sleep on the job, we heard almost nothing of the people across the country suffocating in the wreckage of their lives. Some of us born in the Depression still remember the song made famous by the Carter Family singers, called the "Worried Man Blues".
"I went across that river and I lay down to sleep. When I woke up there were shackles on my feet."
Read more:
No comments:
Post a Comment