In Impromptus today, I have my third and final part of “Lowry’s Lincoln”: notes on Rich’s book Lincoln Unbound. I wish to reproduce one of those notes, then make a further comment:

Listen to Lincoln on the subject of the Fourth of July. He says, sarcastically, “The fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day — for burning fire-crackers!!!”
I wonder what he’d make of our modern, tinselly, trashy Christmas.

What about Thanksgiving? Many years ago, I did a piece on presidential Thanksgiving proclamations. (I doubt this piece can be found online, even in the bowels of the Internet.) Thanksgiving is an interesting subject, and has an interesting history.

Really, we were to give thanks to God for America — for the blessings of free and democratic government and all that.

Yes, and then you can eat yourself into a coma and watch the Lions lose on television.

But not this year, baby! We got MattStaff and Megatron. (Apologies for the home-state boosterism.)