Complex Numbers

My Hometown

For a short time in Virginia, the third Monday of January was set aside as "Lee - Jackson - King Day." Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, of course, were Virginians most famous for fighting for the South in the War of Northern Aggression.

Pause a moment to imagine Lee, Jackson, and their fellow Southerner, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., spinning in their graves, each for his own reason. Attach a turbine to them; power former Confederate capital Richmond for the rest of the year.

Done with the visualization? Well, this observance lasted from the mid-eighties to 2000. To be fair, Lee-Jackson Day was a State observance for most of a century before King was tacked on. This was due to an unfortunate conjunction of birthdays; they weren't even the same zodiacal sign (Lee and Jackson were both Aquarians, I think, while King would have been a Capricorn).

It took a governor most remembered for putting the Commonwealth into the deep red and screwing localities out of car taxes to segregate the two observances by moving Lee-Jackson Day to the Friday before MLKJr Day - though the Confederate generals were born later in January.

Oh, but that's not all.

The cherry on the Parfait of Doom?

State and local offices are closed on MLKJr Day AND Lee-Jackson Day. That's right. They get a four day weekend mere weeks after the double whammy of Christmas and New Year's Day.

Almost no one in the private sector has either day off.

There was a woman who worked for the County. Let's call her A--. She left her cushy County job to work in the private sector, for one of my competitors, hereafter known as B--. So one day, B-- notices that A-- hadn't shown up for work, so he calls her. The following conversation is pure hearsay:

B--: "Everything okay?"

A--: "Sure. What's going on?"

B--: "Well, we were wondering when you were planning on coming in."

A--: "What? It's Martin Luther King Day."

B--: "Um... we don't get that day off."

A--: "Since when?"

It's worth noting, I think, that MLKJr Day is currently the only Federal holiday that honors an individual American. So, he wasn't a Virginian. I think I can live with that.

In '65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night in the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed in a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown
My hometown

-Bruce Springsteen

"My Hometown"

Born in the USA