If the cries of outrage over the possible elimination of Bunker Hill Day and Evacuation Day as paid holidays for government workers in Suffolk County didn’t already seem absurd to any sentient citizen, this morning’s silly Boston Globe story on yesterday’s Bunker Hill Parade should convince any holdouts.

“This holiday should never be taken away from this town,” lifelong Townie Elaine McCarthy told the paper.

“To do away with this, I don’t know, it would be terrible,” added 82-year-old Liz DiMella, a Charlestown native who ventures back each year for the parade from the Saugus hinterlands.

Hart Memo to Elaine, Liz, and all other aggrieved celebrants:  No one is proposing anything that would do away with the Sunday parade you so look forward to each year. The apparently heretical talk in the Legislature is of doing away with Bunker Hill Day and Evacuation Day as paid weekday holidays for the tiny fraction of the population employed in government offices in Suffolk County. The Bunker Hill Day holiday falls on Wednesday this year, a day when all non-government workers will make what the guardians of the high hack holy days apparently view as an unbearable sacrifice: putting in a full day’s labor while struggling to also squeeze in time for proper reflection on the sacrifices made so many years ago at the Battle of Bunker Hill. (A shout-out to Secretary of State Bill Galvin, who keeps his offices open on both Bunker Hill Day and Evacuation Day.) 

Just as no one is trying to rain on Charlestown’s parade, doing away with Evacuation Day as a paid holiday (commemorating the Continental Army victory of March 17, 1776, in driving the British out of Boston) would in no way preclude all the stale jokes from being told at the Sunday morning St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast (held on the Sunday nearest the 17th) or the parade that steps off later the same day in South Boston.

The defense of these holidays, led by state Sen. Jack “Next-They’ll-Ban-Christmas” Hart and his payroll patriot militia, looks weaker than a flock of fleeing Red Coats.

Screen shot of Jack Hart taken by Boston Globe from masslegislature.tv.

Michael Jonas works with Laura in overseeing CommonWealth Beacon coverage and editing the work of reporters. His own reporting has a particular focus on politics, education, and criminal justice reform.