April 19 is Patriot’s Day, or what used to be Patriot’s Day, in Massachusetts and Maine.
It was the day after Paul Reveres ride [April 18th] – and that date was memorialized in a poem.
Paul Revere’s Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
April 18, 1775… that was the date of the famous Paul Revere ride, and in 1860 when the poem was written, Longfellow noted that hardly a man is now alive who remembered the day and year…
But many did – and they also remembered that the next day, April 19th, was the battle of Lexington and Concord – the start of the American Revolution.
Patriot’s Day was April 19th and that was the holiday [and the remembered date] at least until 1969.
It is still a holiday in Massachusetts [and Maine] but now, like so many holidays, it has been relegated to a Monday – the 3rd Monday in April.
I’ve written before about Monday holidays because all they are now part of three day weekends and people don’t even know what the Monday holiday is representing.
It’s another day when you get a chance to go buy-buy-buy or take a vacation.
Who knows?
Snarky me has a feeling that in the future we will have things like:
- July 4th now celebrated on the 1st Monday in July
- Thanksgiving now will is the 4th Monday in November
- December 25 now celebrated on the 4th Monday in December
- January 1st now celebrated on the 1st Monday of the year
Just think of all the ads that will run promoting the buy-buy-buy atmosphere.
Holidays? Family time?
Who cares?
It’s all about the money 👿
Comments? Thoughts? Thank you.