By Paul Goldfinger
Columbus Day, a Federal holiday, celebrates Christopher Columbus. He gets a day, but Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson do not. What’s the story? Columbus wasn’t even an American. In New York City, Columbus Day celebrates Italian-Americans, but how come Irish-Americans or Native-Americans don’t get a Federal Holiday?
New Year’s Day is a holiday as are Christmas and Thanksgiving, but Easter is not.
Veterans get two holidays: Memorial Day and Veterans Day
According to the official list of Federal holidays (5 U.S.C. 6103), which relates to when Federal government workers get a holiday, only three of them are named for individuals: Martin Luther King , George Washington and Christopher Columbus. Granted some states use different names (e.g., President’s Day), but the law says “George Washington.”
America gets one holiday, Independence Day, while workers get one holiday — Labor Day.
Perhaps it’s time to make some changes. Let’s have one Federal holiday for all the explorers who discovered America including Columbus, Leif Erikson and the Vikings, the Phoenicians and even the Chinese who, it is said, sold egg rolls to Chris’ crew in 1492.
So how about a resolution in Neptune Township to give their workers off for Explorers’ Day, October 8? That would give us a lot more to celebrate, and a wider variety of holiday foods. But who knows what the Phoenicians ate? I guess maybe it was matzoh ball soup, a delicacy the Hebrews adopted when they invaded Phoenicia. It’s too bad the Hebrews didn’t find America. Moses’ birthday would have become a Federal Holiday — or maybe Woody Allen’s birthday.
Editor’s note: The Federal holidays are: New Years Day, Christmas Day, Veterans Day, Columbus Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King Day, Washington’s Birthday and Independence Day
SOUNDTRACK: Columbus was Italian, but it was the Spaniards who financed and approved the voyage of Columbus. Actually, he had first gone to the Portuguese, but they rejected him. It’s like Google getting rejected by a venture capitalist and finally landing in the office of a smart investor – -in this case, Queen Isabella.
So the Italians get the credit for Columbus, but really it was the Spanish crown that should get the credit, and thus our choice of Spanish music below.
By the way, when Columbus returned to Spain, it is reported that the Queen said to him, “Get your hands off me, Columbus; you discovered enough for one day.”
From the soundtrack of “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (Woody Allen) is “Granada” by Emilio de Benito:
The Phoenicians?
Just a small quick correction, Veterans get Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day is for the ones who didn’t come back!
Aren’t they all collectively “veterans?”
Charles: This is from the internet: “The recent article by Mark McMenamin in the November 1996 issue of The Numismatist has renewed interest in the theory that the Phoenicians or their western brethren, the Carthaginians, discovered America, nearly two thousand years before Columbus. If such a discovery did take place, it would be interesting to speculate as to how and when it occurred, then to test our hypothesis against all the available information on the topic and see how it holds up. Of all ancient peoples, the Phoenicians were the only ones with the skills and the sea-going capability required for a trans- Atlantic crossing. By 600 BC, they were building ships that could carry 50 to 100 tons, making them comparable in size and tonnage to the Portuguese caravels of the 15th century.”
Paul, On Memorial Day, Veterans honor their fallen brothers and sisters; they would never claim Memorial Day as their own.
Paul, back atcha:
It seems to me that “discovering” America means more than just landing here and never reporting it back to home and history. The first people here seem to have been Asians who trekked across the Siberian land bridge many thousands of years ago, and they became the “Native Americans.” But we don’t say they “discovered” America, because they had no understanding of what they’d found.
What gives Columbus his rightful claim isn’t that he was necessarily the first one to find this place, but that he had some understanding about its importance, began to explore and map it, and reported his finding back to others. His discovery had a huge impact on the world. Nothing Leif Ericson or some long-forgotten Phoenician might or might not have done diminishes Columbus’ accomplishment in the least.
Columbus is the man.
How many humans found our land, reported of its existence, only for their reports to be lost in time. Columbus only became a discoverer due to a PR machine that worked on Europe. Advertising. Advertising works like a charm even to this day. Truth does not seem to play the kind of role we wish it does.
Nancy: Not to belabor this point, but as a veteran myself, I do know that Memorial Day is to honor the fallen. What I meant in my post was that there are two holidays that have to do with veterans. I don’t see a problem referring to fallen military as veterans. In fact, Veterans Day honors all vets, living and dead.