by Tim Gillie

STAFF WRITER

I don't know why my turn for this column always comes near a holiday. This time it is Presidents Day, a holiday so mysterious and confusing I have no choice but to write about it.

Let's start at the beginning. Back when I was in grade school, holidays weren't always conveniently on Mondays. Instead they came on the day they were meant to be on, and there was no Presidents Day.

We celebrated George Washington's birthday, which is where the confusion starts. President George Washington had two birthdays. He was born prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar -- that's the one we use now -- on February 11. However, after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by the British in 1752, his birthday moved to February 22.

I wasn't around for the first Washington b-day celebration in 1796, but I understand some people celebrated it on February 11 and some on February 22. If I was around, I would have celebrated both.

It wasn't until some 15 presidents later that we had another president revered enough to earn a holiday: Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was also a February baby, born on February 12.

That gave us two presidents to celebrate in one month.

We lived comfortably with this duality for about a century. Then in 1971, a year wisdom was apparently running high, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect. That's when somebody decided a holiday should always equal a three-day weekend. It was really a sneaky move to make us work more. When I was in grade school, if a holiday came on Tuesday or Thursday we got a four-day weekend, so the new measure was more of a Uniform Holiday Ripoff Act.

The third Monday in February was designated, and is still designated, by statute as Washington's birthday. Poor George, all he needed was a third birthday. I do not recall any mention of Lincoln's birthday, but President Richard Nixon, not wanting anybody to be left out, signed a proclamation naming the day as "Presidents Day." Presumably we now celebrate all the presidents -- even useless twits like Buchanan, Harding and Nixon himself -- on one day.

That's where the next mystery comes in: How many presidents do we celebrate on Presidents Day? Just Washington, or Washington and Lincoln, or all 42 or 43? You see, George W. Bush is our 43rd president, but he is only the 42nd person to be president. Grover Cleveland was elected to two non-consecutive terms, so he holds two places, according to historians.

How did we celebrate Presidents Day? It appeared that most citizens who were not working on that day -- myself not among them -- were supposed to buy new cars and furniture as a way of paying our respects to these great men. That's a little different from the early celebrations of Washington's birthday that were marked by founder's day balls, assemblies with long speeches and revelry in taverns.

I liked how they did holidays when I was in Scotland. In the middle of the month they had a "bank holiday," meaning banks and most businesses were closed for no other reason than it was a holiday. At least they were honest -- no reason to fabricate a reason for a day off work. Ach well, I worked bank holidays when I was in Scotland too.

tgillie@tooeletranscript.com