Squeezing two holidays into one post

Spirea - mid-February - PL

                  Valentine’s and President’s Day. Thanks to Arkansas Living and Parade Magazine, this column was a snap to compose, er transcribe.

                *Women purchase 85 % of Valentine’s Day cards, says the Greeting Card Association.

                *Valentine’s Day is the second most popular holiday for sending cards. About one billion cards are exchanged each February 14.

                *Esther A. Howland—the “Mother of the Valentine,” popularized mass produced valentines in America in the 1840s.

                Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don’t Know Much about the American Presidents offered this trivia feature, “Take the Oath of Office Quiz” in Parade. Answers at the end of the column.

                1. In which city did the first inauguration take place? a. Richmond, VA; b. New York City; c. Philadelphia

                2. Which president gave the longest Inaugural Address? a. B. Clinton; b. G. Washington; c. Wm. Henry Harrison

                3. Who was the only president to take the oath of office from a woman? a. L. Johnson; b. R. Reagan; c. Geo. H. W. Bush

                4. African-American soldiers first marched in whose inauguration parade? a. A. Lincoln’s; b. U. S. Grant’s; c. T. Roosevelt’s

                5. Which chief justice administered the most presidential oaths? a. John Jay; b. John Marshall; c. Earl Warren

                6. Inauguration Day was officially changed from March 4 to January 20 thanks to the passage of the 20^th Amendment in 1933. Why? a. It often rained on March 4; b. Congress did not want the inauguration to fall during Lent; c. The transition period between the election and the inauguration of the president-elect was deemed too long.

                7. Which president tossed the Super Bowl coin the same day as his swearing-in? a. R. Nixon; b. G. Ford; c. R. Reagan

                8. Which president administered the oath of office to two of his successors? a. G. Washington; b. J. Q. Adams; c. Wm. H. Taft

                9. Who was sworn in on a Bible written in a modern foreign language? a. T. Jefferson; b. F. D. Roosevelt; c. J. F. Kennedy

10. Which president was given the oath of office by his own father? a. J. Q. Adams; b. C. Coolidge; c. Geo. W. Bush

Have you picked your answers? There may not be room for all the discussion Mr. Davis supplied. You can find the rest online.

1. b. NYC was the temporary capital of the US when Washington took the oath on April 30, 1789.

2. c. Harrison’s speech in 1841 was more than 8,000 words long & took nearly 2 hours to deliver.

                3. a. After JFK’s assassination, Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One by Sarah T. Hughes, a US district judge.

                4. a. At Lincoln’s 2^nd inauguration (1865), four companies of African-American troops, plus lodges of Masons and Odd Fellows joined the procession to the Capitol.

                5. b. Marshall administered the oath 9 times, from Jefferson’s first inauguration (1801) to Andrew Jackson’s second (1833).

                6. c. The old March 4 inaugural date had been selected when travel and communications were much slower and when the “lame duck” period for the outgoing president rarely caused problems.

                7. c. On Jan. 20, 1985, Reagan took the oath privately in the Entrance Hall at the White House, and later went to the Map Room to flip the coin on live television via satellite. (The 49ers won the toss, and the game.)

                8. c. Taft was appointed chief justice in 1921—eight years after his presidency--and administered the oath of office to both Coolidge (1925) and Hoover (1929).

                9. b. Roosevelt used an old family Bible written in Dutch at all four of his inaugurations.

                10. b. Coolidge was sworn in by his father, a justice of the peace, at the family homestead in rural Vermont on Aug. 3, 1923.

                Happy February Holidays.