President’s Day a royal waste of time
When not celebrated by all, closures can annoy people on federal holiday

If anyone tried to go to the bank on Monday they already know that they were closed. That’s right, all government offices, all of our trusted banks (except Compass) and our post offices were all shut down for the day in observance of President’s Day.

Explain to me why that is. Why, on a day when most businesses are closed, are the majority of our schools and universities still open? If President Bush is in favor of family values, why hasn’t he already declared all government holidays inclusive for anybody else working in America?

Why should we being sitting in our classes when everyone else is on vacation?

Monday is considered one of the busiest days of the week, and because it was a federal holiday everything was closed. It is pretty hard to get anything accomplished when the people you need to talk to are sitting at home getting ready for a barbecue.

Just because a couple of president’s birthdays fell around the same time of the month and somebody felt compelled to commemorate this event doesn’t mean the country shouldn’t run properly.

The majority of us have to go to work on our birthdays and on the birthdays of our families and friends. Now, I am not saying that celebrating our past presidential birthdays is bad, but it is unnecessary to shut everything down to do it. And if we are going to shut everything down, then we should at least be consistent enough to let everybody get the day off. That includes students, mall workers and anybody else who is stuck in an office on a government holiday.

President’s Day was not always celebrated on Monday. Before 1968, the holiday was celebrated on Feb. 22 each year on the birthday of George Washington. But then our wonderful U.S. Congress decided we needed a three-day weekend and changed the day, which then only celebrated Washington’s birthday on the third Monday in February.

But that still was not enough. In 1971, President Richard Nixon ordered a proclamation ordering President’s Day to also honor President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, which falls on Feb. 12. That actually was one change that seems sensible.

Well there is good news, the next federal holiday isn’t until Memorial Day. So that gives us plenty of time to make plans so that these annoying federal holidays don’t interfere with our daily lives.

Associate News Editor Hemi Ahluwalia is a junior broadcast journalism major from Stephenville.
She can be reached at (h.ahluwalia@student.tcu.edu).

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