Tonight is the 17th Presidents Day Bash, a tradition that began in 1995 at a friend's apartment in the Murray Hill neighborhood of New York City. He hosted the first 10 Bashes on Sunday nights back when people still got Presidents Day off from work, because (a) there aren't a lot of parties in February, (b) there aren't a lot of parties on Sunday night, (c) it's far enough along from New Year's Eve that people want a party, and (d) why not?
The old gang has scattered across the globe since the last NYC Bash in 2004. That didn't stop me from resurrecting it for Presidents Day 2015. (Call it a franchise.) This will be the 17th Bash because I didn't host it all in 2021 (pandemic) and only had a small gathering in 2022 (pandemic hangover).
That made last year's the Lincoln Bash, and this year's the Andrew Johnson Bash. The 17th POTUS ranked dead-last in many historians' league tables until the new champion goat got crowned in 2017. As I wrote on the official event page, "This year, the Bash won't so much pay homage as it will sigh and shake its head sadly at [Lincoln's] successor, the dumb-as-dung Andrew Johnson, who tried so hard to undo Lincoln's successes that he wound up being the first—and for most of the 235 years we've had presidents, only—president ever impeached."
No, we don't dress up as presidents, nor does the Bash have an overtly political theme. It's just a way to chase out the last bits of winter with a couple dozen people.
In any event, I spent the morning cooking and shopping, so now I will nap.