Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for June 19, 2023

June who?

Juneteenth doesn’t sound date specific to me. Why not let it be a floating holiday?

I don’t know why Arlo is upset at the prospect of a Wednesday holiday. When you’re retired, it doesn’t really matter.

It doesn’t matter, they are both retired.

Any day without junk mail delivery is a lucky day.

when you are retired holidays don’t matter.

Stupid made up “holiday” commemorating minor events over 150 years ago that nobody ever heard of 5 years ago.

If the government employees’ holiday schedule ever changed to match the public sector, they’d have to give up about 18 holidays. Gee, why don’t we all get on the govt patrol? Oh, who would pay for it then?

Make it the first Monday on or after June 13

While I respect the day, and what it commemorates, why is it called Juneteenth? Unless there’s some historical significance to the name, it seems vague and unimaginative. I would think emancipation day would be a better name. It at least gives a clue to the significance of the day

Why do Juneteenth banners feature raised fists? Isn’t that a little bit inflammatory?

The end of slavery really left modern people with an odd set of interretations to cope with. Historians today claim the war was entirely about slavery…which would mean the hundreds of thousands of union casualties, all those sons, brothers, fathers shed their blood to free an oppressed people. But reading the historical accounts of Juneteenth in Texas, it varied from severance pay at the plantations (one gave a bale of cotton and a bushel of corn with a goodbye handshake) to the advice that the unknown looked pretty scary, where many ex slaves stayed where they were for as many as two more years for room and board. Now many slaves were skilled labor, blacksmiths, brick masons, carpenters or at the least experienced at handling stock and general farm chores…all hirable skills. Many were previously hired out by their owners. But post war there was little money in an economy destroyed by war. Now contrary to todays historians…if you were a family in Ohio that lost a father and an uncle in the war…solely out of concern for enslaved people…why did that concern abruptly come to a screeching halt at war’s end. Shouldn’t there have been enormous political pressure in the north to care for slaves? Land reform taking all the old plantations and breaking them into 40 acre homesteads? All those horses and mules massed by the armies for war….shouldn’t they have been provided to slaves? The vast stores of food and livestock held by the army distributed? Tents for the dispossed? Railroads covered most of the inhabited country, why not free passes to everyone of color to allow them to easily and quickly migrate from the South? What about the vast quantities of government owned land at the edge of the west…Kansas, Nebraska? Why not cash money to tide ex-slaves over for two or three years along with 40 acres two mules, a plow and tools, seed, a half dozen milk cows…..the cost would have been negligible compared to what was already spent .

So which is it? The war was waged out of love and concern for the fate of an enslaved people. Or was it just a part of a society tearing itself apart over vast cultural and economic differences that irrationally came to bloodshed…and the fate of those slaves was quickly thrown to the wind?

This year July 4 is a Tuesday. Bet a lot of people will take Monday off.

Just want to point out that ending slavery is something for ALL Americans to celebrate, not just black people. If you don’t think so, you don’t even know what America is ABOUT.

My people asked for reparations (not that I agree with that) and all we got was a do-nothing holiday.

Wednesdays are definitely the worst from a teaching perspective. …almost always a near total waste of a week.

Where do Arlo and Janis live? Most people outside of Texas don’t know what Juneteenth is.

I always thought they were retired, but if he’s lucky it’s on a Monday and unhappy that it’ll be on a Wednesday, he must still have a job. I’m retired and I don’t really care what day a holiday falls on, I’m off them all!

Very educational comments today. And by educational I mean educating me on facts and opinions.

Is it a real holiday if my job doesn’t recognize it?

Wednesday holidays can be confusing. Do you take Monday and Tuesday off as well, making a five day weekend and return on Thursday or do you take Thursday and Friday off as well and make it 5 day weekend the other way. I prefer the latter. YMMV

I have never had a job where I got off because of a holiday. Indeed most of those holidays that others take for granted were the days where we were required to work. Most-but not all, of my employers did give us “Holiday” pay. My mom was a waitress, and very few of the restaurants she worked at closed for anything as well.

What about emancipation month in January to celebrate the ending of slavery.

July 4th is a Tuesday this year

I like that I get the day off