You hear it all the time: America is more divided now than ever. Political candidates promise to unite the country, but those vows always fall flat.
Here’s an idea, though, that might finally get the left, right and center on the same page.
The Super Bowl is a de facto national holiday in this country, and you know the rules: If a holiday falls on a Sunday, it’s observed in the workplace on Monday.
Adding another holiday to the calendar, though, causes logistical and economic chaos. Plus, we already have a holiday that is pretty much arbitrarily set on the third Monday in February (more on that in a moment).
Presidents Day should be realigned to fall on the Monday after the Super Bowl.
There, I fixed one of America’s biggest problems!
The history of the holiday stems from George Washington’s birthday. Washington’s original birthday was Feb. 11, 1731, but in 1752, the British empire switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar to account for a bunch of missing leap days. (It’s complicated, but this caused all sorts of chaos when 11 days magically vanished from people’s lives.)
Therefore, Washington’s Birthday (as it’s still officially known at the federal level) was reset to Feb. 22. Congress made that date a federal holiday in 1879, but in 1971, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act changed the holiday to the third Monday of February. The latest date on which the third Monday of the month can fall is the 21st, so that law 52 years ago makes it impossible to actually celebrate Washington’s Birthday on Washington’s birthday.
So why not kill two birds with one stone? Let’s get the Super Bowl and Presidents Day (or Washington’s Birthday, as you prefer) on the same page – make it the second Monday of February. Contact your elected officials today!
By the way, I’ll take the Chiefs, 29-27.
