First off, let me say welcome back to RPI everyone—wasn’t it nice to have a three-day weekend after only one week of school? We just celebrated Labor Day, and even though it represents the “official” end to the summer season, most of us knew what holiday it was. However, a select few out there referred to yesterday as “Memorial Day,” including a radio newscaster and an RPI official. From my random sampling of people, I deduced that the general public needed a quick lesson in holidays—what they are, when they are, and why we celebrate them.
Given that Labor Day was only two days ago, I will begin the explanations there. Aptly named, this holiday originated in 1882 from the Central Labor Union wishing to get a day off for “the working man.” Labor Day is observed on the first Monday in September, and workers across the country mark the end of summer with family barbecues, camping trips, and long lines at the tollbooths. For most students and teachers, this means classes will be starting again, or may already be back in session. It may have been just a day off, a break to get readjusted to schoolwork, or the end of a three-month vacation. Either way, Monday, September 3 this year was Labor Day—not Memorial Day—in the United States.
So what is this Memorial Day thing then? If not in September, when exactly is it? This holiday was created a couple decades before Labor Day, sometime after the end of the Civil War, and was originally celebrated on May 30. Though there are still some debates on the birthday and birthplace of Memorial Day, Waterloo, N.Y. was declared the official birthplace by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was a day to remember those who had died in the war, and after World War I, the holiday was expanded to include all those who died in war or any military actions. In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which moved both Labor Day and Memorial Day to a specific Monday, thus creating two glorious three-day weekends that sandwich the summer months. It is easy to see why people could confuse the two—they are both, after all, Monday holidays.
Although this should be standard knowledge for us here in the U.S., my assumption was proven false this past weekend. The best solution to fix this is, of course, to implement mandatory holiday classes for everyone, complete with an exam at the end. After completion, everyone will be given a certification in holiday knowledge. Perhaps the teaching would begin in kindergarten and then be renewed at the end of each schooling stage—elementary, junior high, high school, and even collegiate degrees. Then it could be updated or further renewed each time a driver’s license expires and is reissued. This would ensure that everyone knows just what holiday it is and would be worthy of its celebration. Or, we could give workers a pop quiz and people who answer incorrectly would be deemed undeserving and forced to work the holiday.
This may not be a very practical solution, but the point remains: we have holidays for a reason, and although some may seem pointless, they were all created and implemented for a reason. Just because the two previously mentioned holidays are not days of gift-giving and receiving or huge feasts, they are equally as important—if not more important—to those directly affected. Though some might only care about the fact that these are three-day weekends, everyone should at least know what holiday it is and the significance of that day in regards to our country’s history.
