AFFotD Presents a Week of American Holidays (Part Four)

“Good Friday doesn’t count THAT much, does it?”

~Jesus

As we saw in yesterday’s post, there are a surprising amount of Holidays that occur throughout America, ranging from “Well that’s just stupid” to “Oh I guess I’ve heard of that.”  In honor of this week being the week of America’s fucking birthday, we’re continuing our five part feature on Holidays in America.  Continuing onward…

Good Friday:  The Friday before Easter, Nationwide

Yes, Good Friday gets its own mention in today’s fun fact, yet we completely are ignoring Easter.  That’s because Easter is the third type of Holiday (the ones that “count” but also don’t result in Americans getting a day off) while some states actually do take Good Friday off.  While various members of the AFFotD staff are indeed Catholic, the majority of us only know Good Friday as occurring in between that day when our Catholic coworkers come in with dirty foreheads and the day were children are forced to scamper around to college hard boiled eggs.  Christian holidays are weird.

Juneteenth/Emancipation Day:  June 19^th in 37 states, May 20^th in Florida, April 16^th in Washington D.C., May 8^th in Mississippi, August 8^th in Kentucky

Emancipation Day, or Juneteenth in much of America, celebrates the end of slavery in America, which is pretty American.  Because honestly, slavery sucks, if you’re supportive of slavery in the year of 2011 you’re probably an overweight 35 year old Croatian man who is involved in some seriously illegal shit.  So why wouldn’t Emancipation Day be higher on the list?  Well, it’s because it’s only a day off known as “Emancipation Day” in a handful of parts of the country.  “Emancipation Day” is only celebrated as a day off in Washington D.C., and if you go to its Wikipedia page it talks about British Colonies before they talk about America.   And that just won’t do.

But what about Juneteenth?  That’s an official holiday in 37 states, celebrated on June 19^th to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation.  Texas founded it, no doubt to make up for that whole “Sometimes having Confederate Memorial Day on the same day as MLK Day”  thing, and lists it as a “partial staff holiday.”  Which means, you don’t really get the day off.   Meanwhile, your state most likely celebrates Juneteenth…but had you honestly heard about it before today?  Yeah, it’s like the Clint Howard of Holidays:  You either have never heard of it before, or if you have it was only really in passing.  Either way, its balding, creepy looking, and less successful than its older brother.

Clint Howard is not an attractive man, is what we’re saying.

You have to pay the troll toll if you want to get this boy’s soul.

Casimir Pulaski Day:  First Monday of March in Illinois, Wisconsin

This holiday is a tricky one.  While on one hand, you get school off (and really, any extra day to put off education is something we endorse.  Our thought process is, if the next generation is smarter than us, they’re going to steal our lunch money or something.  That’s why most of the AFFotD merchandise for children, including our pacifiers, come with just a hiiiiiint of lead contamination.  But we do digress), and public employees don’t have to go to work either.  But on the other hand, this is essentially a Chicago holiday that New York hipsters only know about because it was the title of a Sufjan Stevens song.

Oh, and also, the dude wasn’t even American.  Casimir Pulaski was a member of Polish royalty, who admittedly did join the Revolutionary War effort and is known as the “father of American cavalry.”  On one hand, cavalry was badass enough for Teddy Roosevelt to take part in it, but on the other hand, cavalry has pretty much been useless since 1918.  And, sure, he may have been posthumously made an American citizen by Barack Obama, and yes he may have saved George Washington’s Life in 1777, and he served with Mad Anthony Wayne, and he died heroically from wounds that he suffered fighting for the American cause and…

Actually, you know what?  Casimir Pulaski was a massive badass.  The only problem with this holiday is that it’s basically only celebrated in Chicago.  Take note, rest of America, this dude was awesome.

And look at that goddamn mustache!

Strangely enough, a lot of the holidays that give many Americans a day off of work or school are among the least American of holidays.  That’s why you need to stay tuned for tomorrow’s fun fact going over the Holidays that might not let you take the day off, but can help celebrate things like flags, or drinking…like, just drinking a lot.

…We’re going to be talking about the drinking holidays more often… just a fair warning.