Monday is Presidents’ Day, and you know what that means; it is mattress sale weekend, which begs the question: How are mattresses synonymous with Presidents’ Day?
Hm-m-m, let me think. Second only to the oval office, the best-known room at the White House is Lincoln’s bedroom. And think about all those inns with signs that brag, “Washington slept here.” I hope those colonial motels aren’t putting travelers up on the original mattresses on which the first president caught a few zzzz’s sleeping around the country, because Ohio State University experts say a mattress more than 10 years old could harbor from 100,000 to 10 million dust mites. Yikes!
I’m a sleep number fan myself, but in the 18th century, mattresses were stuffed with cotton or wool. That was a huge improvement over the first known beds from 10,000 years ago that were made of mounds of leaves or grass covered with animal skins. They were raised off the ground to avoid pests … but how did neolithic couples keep their pet saber tooth cats from jumping in with them?
During the 16th and 17th centuries, mattresses were filled with straw or down and laid atop a lattice of ropes or leather supported by a wooden bed frame. The phrase “sleep tight” comes from the need to tighten the ropes. In 3600 B.C., the Persians slept on the first water beds, which were goatskins filled with water. Innerspring mattresses were invented in the late 19th century. Today, bedding choices include waterbeds, innerspring coils, air mattresses and memory foam mattresses, all available at bargain prices during the long Presidents’ Day weekend created by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in the late 1960s.
The act established three-day weekends and selected the third Monday in February as a compromise date between presidents George Washington’s Feb. 22 birthday and Abraham Lincoln’s Feb. 12 birthday; the compromise date became known as Presidents’ Day. The federal holiday honors all U.S. presidents, but it wasn’t always so. It was first celebrated on Washington’s birth date in 1800, the year after his death. President Rutherford B. Hayes proclaimed Washington’s Birthday a national holiday in 1885. February also is the birth month of President Ronald Reagan, born Feb. 6, and William Henry Harrison, born Feb. 9.
‘ANCHORMAN’ INSPIRATION MORT CRIM SPEAKS
Atlantic Beach resident Mort Crim has encountered a few presidents during his days as an award-winning television and radio journalist. He sat next to and interviewed President Ronald Reagan in 1985, when he was invited to the White House as a reporter representing a Detroit TV station. That was but one of many fascinating experiences Crim related to residents and guests at a Jan. 29 program at Fleet Landing, a continuing care retirement community in Atlantic Beach.
During his illustrious broadcast career — he has six Emmys to his credit — Crim interviewed many famous personalities, and indeed gained fame in his own right as the inspiration for comedic actor Will Ferrell’s movies Anchorman and Anchorman 2. Crim said he wasn’t offended by the Anchorman character Ron Burgundy (“It was all done in fun”). As a guest at the New York City premiere of Anchorman 2, he met Ferrell for the first time. He walked up to the actor to shake his hand and said, “It’s such an honor for you to meet me.” (Touché!)
The career journalist has a passion for aviation. Indeed, he served in the U.S. Air Force and is a skilled civilian pilot. He learned to fly as a teenager and bought his first airplane at age 17 for $475. “Flying is a good analogy for life,” he said. His experience as a two-time cancer survivor prompted him to fulfill an item on his “bucket list” four years ago, when he was 74. He flew solo in his two-seater plane dubbed TWA (Teeny Weenie Airplane) 7,400 miles across the United States in a month.
Fleet Landing offers quality programs and services to support active and independent lifestyles for adults ages 62 and older. For more information, visit www.fleetlanding.com.
‘NOCATEENS’ GET CULTURED
FOCUS Cummer hosted an informative, educational arts program for about 60 Nocatee residents on Feb. 7. The social evening at Nocatee Town Center, organized by Michael Kleiman, introduced the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens and its Beaches support organization to “Nocateens,” as some residents jokingly call themselves. Nocatee is the fifth-fasting-growing community in the country. About 800 new homes were sold there last year, so many of the residents are new to Nocatee and Jacksonville, community manager David Ray said.
FOCUS president Bill Struck stressed the importance of supporting the arts. “I feel if we don’t support these institutions and keep them alive, we are doing a disservice to not only our generation, but generations to come.”
Before delving into the mind of sculptor Jacob Epstein and his sculpture Portrait of Kathleen, owned by the museum, Cummer executive director Hope McMath talked about the museum’s mission to engage and inspire through its arts, gardens and education programs. “I pick things for these talks that are under-appreciated and unknown, and trace the life of an object from the mind of the artist to what it is today.”
McMath’s presentation, illustrated by slides, took the audience from Epstein’s first major public work, a monument on the grave of Oscar Wilde, to “beautiful expressive portrait busts of distinctive people well-known and not so well-known … Kathleen was special to him. She became his muse and his lover. He did seven portraits of her.” A board member bought and donated Kathleen to the Cummer in the 1960s. It now resides in the museum’s new outdoor sculpture garden. “We hope it will tempt you to come and visit,” McMath said.
SAFARI SPOILS BENEFIT MEMORY CARE CENTER
On Feb. 8, Ponte Vedra Beach Rotarians and their guests had lots to roar about at their Out of Africa party at the Sawgrass Golf Resort & Spa, a Marriott Resort. President-elect Mary Anne Thomas organized the Dark Continent-themed party, and many dressed for a safari, wearing pith helmets or “Indiana Jones-style hats,” while others wore ethnic dashikis and kaftans. Africa was among the exotic vacations available for the 320 or so guests to bid on via the latest in silent auction technology. After checking in, swiping a credit card and providing a cell phone number, shoppers could easily bid from afar. When someone topped their offers, bidders were notified to rebid by instant messaging even while supping at a three-entree buffet or kicking up their heels to tunes by Pro Bono.
Intrepid Capital was the title sponsor for the event, which “raised $50,000 for the new Ponte Vedra Memory and Alzheimer’s Day Care Center, club president Shelley Morgan said. The money will be used to “retro-fit the old Baptist Church classrooms next to the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall on Florida A1A to provide music and art therapy for only $50 a day.” The Rotary’s motto is “service above self,” and in the past 32 years, the Ponte Vedra club has raised about $800,000 that has gone to Ponte Vedra community projects, Morgan said. The Ponte Vedra Beach Rotary has 105 members and meets at 7:30 a.m., every Thursday at Marsh Landing Country Club. For information, go to www.pvbrotary.org.
VFW POST 3270 TURNS 75
At noon today, the Greater Beaches Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3270 offers a patriotic intro to Presidents’ Day weekend with a celebration of the Post’s 75th anniversary at VFW headquarters, 915 Eighth Ave. South, Jacksonville Beach. The event includes a ceremony outside the post led by Cmdr. Jim Durnal. There will be a recitation of A Toast to the Flag and the raising of Old Glory with a gun salute by the Beaches Honor Guard. After the ceremony, VFW Florida Cmdr. Chester Pyatt will speak. Refreshments will be available.
VETERANS GET CREST
On another patriotic note, the Beaches Veterans Memorial Park in Atlantic Beach has a new veterans’ organizational crest recognizing six military services that participated in World War II. There also is a chaplains regimental crest honoring 340 chaplains who have died in combat since the Revolutionary War. In 2010, six Beaches veterans’ organizations banded together to develop land provided by the City of Atlantic Beach as a Veterans Memorial Park. It is used to hold patriotic ceremonies for the community and to honor U.S. Armed Forces past and present. A Chaplains Memorial Garden includes a “path of honor” made of bricks inscribed with the chaplains’ names as well as names of local individuals being honored by their families and friends. To purchase bricks, go to www.beachesveteransmemorialpark.org.
PARTING WORDS ...
As a child from poor beginnings, “Honest Abe” Lincoln represents the American dream that children can grow up to be whatever they want. Many people consider him America’s greatest president, because he kept the U.S. from splitting into two or more countries.
Washington has the distinction of being the only president to have received 100 percent of the Electoral College vote, winning 69 out of 69 votes. He was elected America’s first president by delegates from each state on April 6, 1789. He’s also known as a man of virtue, because of a quote attributed to him: “Father, I cannot tell a lie; I cut the tree.” Ironically, the quote and the story, that as a boy he chopped down a cherry tree then confessed to his father, was fabricated by Mason Locke Weems, who wrote a biography of Washington after his death.
Following Weems’ lead, the Rooney Bin has fabricated a quote to commemorate mattress sale weekend: “Sleep tight; don’t let the dust mites bite.”
Jackie Rooney is a freelance writer who lives in Ponte Vedra Beach. Contact her at firstname.lastname@example.org.