Presidents Day is a bullshit holiday

Some presidents are more worthy of recognition than others.

When I was a kid we thought the Holy Trinity of American politics comprised George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

We celebrated Washington’s birthday on Feb. 22, because he was George Fuckin’ Washington, is why. Father of Our Country. Wooden teeth, cannot tell a lie, threw a silver dollar across the Potomac. Try that with today’s bogus fiat currency and see how far it flies.

Lincoln was born in a log cabin he built himself, freed the slaves, and wrote the best speech ever.

And Kennedy boinked Marilyn Monroe. He slipped it to that commie bastard Nikita Khrushchev, too, but only metaphorically speaking. Still, well done indeed.

But it was Washington’s birthday we celebrated, for the aforementioned reason (he was GFW, the OG, our national daddy-o). And I’m still OK with that, debunking of childhood mythologies notwithstanding.

However, I object to the blanket veneration issued to all subsequent holders of the office since the Uniform Holiday Act took effect in 1971, not least because it followed an executive order from the criminal Richard M. Nixon, who just three years later would run like a rat to San Clemency, pardoned by his successor, the execrable Gerald R. Ford.

Here’s the thing: The presidency is a job, and hiring does not confer beatification. We’ve signed up some real lulus for the gig, bozos best consigned to the Dumpster of History, including the bloated scumbag presently squatting in the Oval Office like an orange poison toad.

We’re supposed to stand this guy up alongside Washington? A Father of Douchebags with a wooden head who lies through plastic teeth and couldn’t throw a French fry across a Mickey D’s? And take a day off in his honor?

I think we should all have to work an extra day, and for free, too, for hiring the sonofabitch in the first place.

Quaddammit

The 36th Mount Taylor Winter Quadradthlon is today.

Don’t look for me in results — it’s been years since I raced the Quad, but I was pretty OK at it a time or two. The bike and run legs, anyway.

Hal’s wife, Mary, and I used to race it as a mixed pair, and we won in 1990, 1992 and 1993.

I was usually in decent shape, being tanned, rested and ready following a long cyclocross season. And Mary was always tip-top, living at altitude up Weirdcliffe way and running around with jackasses, some of them four-legged (ho, ho).

Quadware included Nambé medals and platters.

Hal, of course, did the whole thing solo, which always looked a bit too much like work to me. I was only so-so on snowshoes and an outright hazard on cross-country skis.

This was and remains a toy-heavy pasatiempo, and Hal’s truck would be stuffed to the topper with bikes, wheels, tires, skis, shoes, snowshoes and a ridiculous amount of clothing suited to any and all weather conditions.

Running shoes were augmented with sheet-metal screws in the soles for traction, in case there was ice on the run leg (there usually was).

Clip-on aero bars? Sometimes. Once I used a set of Scott Rakes to good effect, aero bars giving me The Fear on the descent back to Grants.

The bike was usually standard road. In 1990 I was rocking an aluminum Trek 1500 with 53/39 rings and a 13-24 freewheel.

I know I’ve written about the Quad before, but whatever I cranked out is squirreled away on a Zip disk somewhere or in an actual magazine, and I don’t feel like diving down those rabbit holes this morning.

However, I did find a reference to my first Quad in my 1990 training diary, and that reads as follows:

“Big-time pain. I don’t think I’ve felt this bad since I got the shit kicked out of me at Alamogordo last year. Bike leg was slower than I’d hoped for … and my uphill run was fucking awful. Downhill run was better — but not much — and the downhill bike was spiked by the Headwind from Hell.”

Yeah, good times. The Quad will never be the new golf.

• Editor’s note: Hal “Mr. Awesome” Walter notes that I lifted his faux curse “Quadammit” from one of his own works. This explains why a Spotlight search failed to turn it up on any of my hard drives; that, and an admittedly casual approach to petty theft. Give it a read.