THE FOURTH OF JULY

Today is a holiday.

There is something funny about American holidays. Like, for instance, Memorial Day. Memorial Day was traditionally celebrated on May 30th. Unfortunately, May 30th didn’t always fall on a Friday or a Monday. So, because we love our 3-day weekends, our government changed Memorial Day from May 30th to the last Monday of May.

And what about President’s Day? It used to be called Washington’s Birthday and was always celebrated on February 22nd (That’s the day George arrived in 1732). Unfortunately, February 22nd didn’t always fall on a Friday or a Monday. So, because we love our 3-day weekends, our government changed Washington’s Birthday to President’s Day and then changed the day we observe it from February 22nd to the third Monday of February.

Then came Martin Luther King, Jr.

After he died, some congressmen and some citizens petitioned the President in the early ‘80’s to make January 15th Martin Luther King Day. Unfortunately, January 15th didn’t always fall on a Friday or a Monday. So, because we love our 3-day weekends, January 15th was never chosen. Instead, we declared the third Monday in January to be Martin Luther King Day.

So, what do we do about The Fourth of July?

You can’t go and celebrate the Fourth of July on the fifth of July just because the fourth might happen to fall on a Thursday, can you? That would destroy the integrity of the very name of the holiday! So, as much as we love our 3-day weekends, we seem to be stuck in the mud on this one.

Or are we?

What if we quit calling it “The Fourth of July” and started calling it “Independence Day”? Then we could turn it into another annual 3-day weekend. We would love that!

Whoops! That would create another problem. All those songs written about The Fourth of July would need to be rewritten and all the lyrics changed from “The Fourth of July” to “Independence Day”. And that might not sound right.

Imagine James Cagney in that classic 1942 flick “Yankee Doodle Dandy” busting out in song with the lyrics to the title song of the movie:

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy

A Yankee Doodle, do or die

A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam's

Born on Independence Day.

Nope. That won’t work.

Or what about “Saturday in the Park”, that great 1972 hit from the band, Chicago:

Saturday in the park

I think it was Independence Day

People dancing, people laughing

A man selling ice cream.

Nope. That won’t work either.

So, as much as we love our 3-day weekends, this might be a good one to leave alone.