THE BORN LESAR
Perhaps we should pay more heed to Presidents Day
So, how did you celebrate your Presidents Day? Maybe play a lively game of Rutherford B. Hayes trivia around the dinner table with the family? Hang some Ulysses S. Grant replica campaign posters in the kids' rooms to stimulate their political history education? Maybe organize a debate in your workplace about the relative merit of each of the Roosevelt administrations? Come on, now, Franklin gets all the headlines for World War II and stuff, but Teddy was blinded in one eye after suffering a boxing injury -- in the White House. True story. No wonder they said he couldn't take a jab from the liberal left.
Having been born near the day set aside each year to commemorate our Commandersin- Chief (I purposely loitered in the womb a little longer than usual to make it happen), I've always felt a little presidential myself. My birthday, see, lands just after the third Monday in February, so I just tell everyone that the mail isn't delivered that day because of me. Too much volume with all the cards I'm about to receive. Something like that.
To further tie my connection to Presidents Day, my oldest son was born on George Washington's birthday (you have no idea how tricky that was timing that out the previous May), and my nephew was born on Lincoln's. Now, if my other son would not have so selfishly avoided entering this world on say, Millard Fillmore's birthday, or maybe even Grover Cleveland's (I wasn't that picky), I would have had a clean family sweep. Oh, well, I named him Benjamin anyway, after President Harrison (1889-93). Just seemed like the right thing to do.
Following my presidential aspirations, I was duly elected to lead my senior class in the early 1980s. I ran on a platform of plugging all the holes in the girls locker room walls (no, not popular with the male demographic, but I was quite ahead of my time on gender equity issues), lobbying for the kitchen staff to eliminate shepherd's casserole from the menu rotation (it tasted like something you'd find in a shower drain, without the hair), and a change in long-standing school class officer policy that would allow me to serve consecutive terms as senior class president (you know, just in case the graduating on time thing didn't work out). Turns out, my stances on the issues were so irrefutable, I won in a landslide. Well, sure, it cost me two term papers and my yellow yo-yo (yeah, those were big at the time) to convince the other candidate to drop out, but it was well worth it.
There was not a lot a class president had to do in those days, other than call a class meeting every few months to pick a homecoming court representative or pass out graduation announcement order forms. That would have been simple, except one of our class advisers happened to be the FFA teacher, and well, those guys down there in the ag room (I always wondered why it smelled like bacon in the lower hallway), they followed this Roberts Rule of Order garbage.
Whenever I'd start a class meeting by yelling 'OK, everybody shaddup and listen!' he'd say, oh, no, you must properly call the meeting to order and follow certain procedures for making motions and seconds and ruling people out of order for sticking their used chewing gum between book pages (we met in the library). Mine tended to be more of a dictatorial administration ('Our class flower is gonna be a dandelion, anybody gotta problem with that?'), but he insisted that we conduct business with civil debate and adherence to parliamentary procedure. Whatever. As long as I got to stand up front and pound stuff with a wooden gavel, I was happy.
You can be sure, the term 'impeachment' was never brought up during my term, and not just because none of us had ever heard of it (look, we were only 11 when Tricky Dick was in offi ce). I held strong political sway during my rule and demanded complete loyalty from each and every one of my 62 classmates (that's counting the gerbil in the science room), and if anyone had even suggested an overthrow of my regime, I woulda' come at them with both barrels. Cross me, I told 'em, and I'll make sure the gym teacher has you running a marathon while everybody else plays badminton. If you wanna be last in line in the cafeteria on fried chicken day (nuthin' left but naked wings), just suggest I don't have the best interest of the Class of '81 in mind. Even think of asking the civics teacher how to begin the process of removing an elected official from office, and I'll bribe the principal (he loved red licorice) into changing your grade transcripts so the only college that would think about admitting you would be a Catholic seminary (that one really scared the girls).
My rule ended on a warm day in May 1981, when I delivered a graduation speech that's still being talked about in my hometown ('Hey, did that Lesar kid ever get off probation?'). I was in charge of the traditional 'memories' message, and I carefully retraced our class' steps from snot-nosed kindergartners to snot-nosed junior high brats to snot-nosed seniors (we caught a lot of colds back then, for some reason). After that, I mostly retired from public service, content instead to build massive college debt in order to secure a low-paying, unfulfilling career. Nobody can say that I used my former position for future gain.
Other than that aforementioned Postal Service day off, Presidents Day doesn't mean much to the general public. That's sad, sort of, 'cuz those 46 men who have been elected to serve us over the years have been important figures, regardless of the party to which they belonged, and they've brought us through wars and economic depressions and civil rights crises and every manner of grave situation. I know it's nowhere near comparable, but I served as a class president in a time of great peril (Reagan was in the White House, trust me, nobody was safe), and I know what it takes to be a leader. All you gotta do is pound that gavel real hard and threaten to raise class dues from $2 to $2.50, and, by George, they'll listen.
Lest you think I am seriously comparing myself to a real president, let me just say that I realize that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address, and I write, well, this. 'Nuff said.
