Results tagged “bunkerhillday”

Sam Yoon needs a tricorn hat. Immediately. June 17, 2009 is Bunker Hill Day and nobody could ever forget it in 2009 because no one will ever shut up about it. Mayor Menino seems to think no child in Boston has ever heard of the historical event it represents despite apparent proof to the contrary reported by the Globe. Yes, the Mayor of Boston actually said Boston Public Schools no longer teach students about the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Globe said Bunker Hill is specifically mentioned in the state's Department of Education curriculum guidelines. The Globe also reportedly couldn't reach school officals because they had the day off. Some people worked, though, even if school officials didn't. And that is the whole ever-loving point, isn't it? (Yes, a line from Primary Colors)Should it be a day off ONLY in Suffolk County? It could be worse, it could be St. Patrick's Day Evacuation Day, which we know exists just to cover a bender.

The Suffolk County–specific holidays of Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day were upheld yesterday, but people are up in arms about state senator Michael Knapik's mockery of senator Jack Hart's Irishness and commitment to Evacuation Day. Knapik supported eliminating the holidays, questioning the need for Suffolk-only days and positing that the days off cost the state $5 million each—a hefty sum. Hart countered that the holidays honor Suffolk County's uniquely Irish heritage, and that eliminating them sets up a path for docking other holidays, such as Thanksgiving and even Christmas. Notably, Hart is from here; Knapik is not—so may just be suffering from sour grapes. Check the video for the debate.

Walking to work today, Bostonist saw two people a day early in their full-out St. Patrick's Day Irish gear (green paper hat, "all about drinking and Irishness in a hard-drinking, heavily Irish town. But part of us clings to the belief that if people only knew more about Evacuation Day - commemorating an actual Revolutionary War victory in Boston (unlike Bunker Hill Day) - they would embrace it as we do. To that end, some...

With the oppressive pseudo-summer turning back to comfortable spring for a few days before summer actually begins, Bostonist's thoughts are turning to the weekend and to upcoming holidays and events. (Ordinarily, we would say that the beginning of summer is a good reason to celebrate, but we have the impression that everyone's pretty much fed up with summer for now.) If you work in Suffolk County, you probably have Friday off in honor of Bunker Hill Day, which commemorates, oddly, a loss by the revolutionary army to the hated redcoats. Why do we celebrate a loss? Well, for the same reason that Bostonist's softball team thinks fondly of the game three weeks ago in which we were defeated 17-12: it was a close loss and showed we could actually play (unlike our other three losses, which featured the invocation of the mercy rule). The Battle of Bunker Hill (which, as third-grade history teachers are surely reminding us right now, was actually fought on Breed's Hill) showed the British that the Americans had some fight in them and were not going to be easily defeated. (It was also the occasion on which General William Prescott is said to have advised his troops, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes," which is somehow evocative of underdog toughness.) If that strikes you as insufficient motivation for a day off, you clearly aren't well acquainted with Boston's special relationship with paid holidays.

Monday is Patriots Day, another one of those Massachusetts-only holidays that Bostonist adores. Some cynics suggest that it is no accident that two of our unique holidays, Evacuation Day and Patriots Day, fall on occasions usually celebrated with hearty amounts of drink (St. Patrick's Day and the Boston Marathon), and the third, Bunker Hill Day, saves June from being a month without time off and falls conveniently half-way between Memorial Day and July 4th. Bostonist...