This Friday, February 12th Is...

Abraham Lincoln's birthday.

Somehow we rolled Washington's and Lincoln's birthday into one and observe them on "Presidents Day."
Why? I don't get it.

That's like celebratin' your birthday almost a week after the fact. Personally, I feel we need to acknowledge these great Americans individually and on their actual birth date.

If they were alive today, I wonder how they would feel about how we "honor" them?
Hmmmm... Let's see. A paid day off, no mail delivery or bankin' and there's the buy 1 get 1 free sale at retail stores.
I don't think that's how they would have imagined it, do you?

Besides bein' on our penny and five dollar bill, here's a few facts about Honest Abraham Lincoln.

He was born on February 12th 1809 in Hardin County Kentucky and died April 15th 1865 at the age of fifty six.

His home state is Illinois and he ran a store in New Salem.

His party was Republican and he was president for four years from 1861-1865, when he was assassinated.

Abraham had four children, Robert Todd Lincoln, Edward Lincoln, Willie Lincoln, Tad Lincoln. Only Robert Todd Lincoln survived into adulthood.

Lincoln was fond of pets, and owned horses, cats, dogs and a turkey. Even though he was strong, a talented wrestler, and proficient with an axe, he disliked killing and harming animals, even for food.

His birth mother died from milk sickness. (A rare disease caused by consuming dairy or meat products from cattle that have eaten any of various poisonous weeds.) His father remarried. Abraham was very close to his step mother.

He had deep depression, even though he would frequently tell stories and jokes to friends and family.

On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy. It was the crowning achievement of his administration. The original autograph was lost in the Chicago fire of 1871. Surviving photographs of the document show it primarily in Lincoln's own hand.

He never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

One week before his death, had a dream of someone crying in the White House, when he found the room; he looked in and asked who had passed away. The man in the room said the President. When he looked in the coffin it was his own face he saw.

He was the first president to be assassinated. It happened on Good Friday, April 14th 1865 at Ford's Theatre in Washington DC. The assassin was John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South by murdering the president.

So the next time you see his face plastered all over your newspaper's sale flyers in the month of February; remember he was our 16th president and a mighty, mighty good man.

:> )