The Holiday We Forgot How to Keep

Cedar Valley News – February 16, 2026
The Holiday We Forgot How to Keep
By: Teresa Nikas
From the fictional town of Cedar Valley, where characters from Quiet Echo continue to respond to real-world events.

Presidents’ Day used to mean something. Today it means forty percent off a mattress.

While most Americans slept in or scrolled for deals this Monday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood in Munich and reminded a room full of European leaders where Western civilization came from. He called America a “child of Europe.” He spoke of shared history, shared blood, shared battlefields. He told our allies the time had come to stand on their own feet — not because we were leaving, but because strong friends do not lean on each other forever. The speech drew a standing ovation. It also drew a question Cedar Valley ought to sit with on a day named for the men who built this country.

Do we still know what presidential leadership looks like?

George Washington walked away from power. He could have been king. The army would have followed him. The country would have let him. He said no. He went home to his farm and left behind a letter warning his countrymen about the things most likely to destroy them — political factions, foreign entanglements, and the slow erosion of civic virtue. He did not ask what the republic could do for him. He asked whether the republic would hold together after he was gone.

Abraham Lincoln held a divided nation by its collar and refused to let go. He buried a son during the war. He buried six hundred thousand of his countrymen before it was over. He never stopped believing the union was worth saving — not because the government was perfect, but because the idea behind it was sacred. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. He said those words at a graveyard. He meant every one.

These were not comfortable men. They were not popular men, at least not in the way we measure popularity now. Washington was criticized in the press. Lincoln was hated by half the country. Neither man governed by poll. Neither man led by convenience. They led by conviction, and the convictions cost them.

Rubio’s speech in Munich carried an echo of something both men understood. A free nation cannot be carried. It must carry itself. He told Europe to stop depending on American protection as a permanent arrangement and start building strength of its own. That is not abandonment. It is respect. It is the same thing a good father tells a grown child. I will always be here. But you need to stand.

Washington said it first. In his Farewell Address he warned against permanent alliances — not because he did not value friendship, but because he understood dependency. A nation leaning on another nation eventually forgets how to stand. The same is true of citizens leaning on a government. The same is true of a generation leaning on the sacrifices of the one before it without making sacrifices of its own.

Here in Cedar Valley the post office is closed today. The bank is closed. The school is dark. Lars Olson opened the hardware store anyway because Lars does not believe in holidays where nothing gets built. Caleb Mercer is at the town hall clearing brush from the walking trail because he says a mayor who will not pick up a rake has no business picking up a gavel. Dan Larson spent his morning teaching his grandchildren the Gettysburg Address — not because it was assigned, but because he believes some words should live in a child’s bones before the world tries to take them out.

None of them mentioned a sale. None of them checked their phones for a deal. They honored the day the way it was meant to be honored — by doing something worthy of the men it remembers.

The cable channels will spend today arguing about whether Rubio’s Munich speech helped or hurt the administration’s standing in Europe. The pundits will score it like a game. They will miss the point the way they always miss the point.

The point is not whether Europe clapped. The point is whether we still believe what Washington and Lincoln believed — a free people must govern themselves, defend themselves, and hold themselves to a standard higher than comfort. Self-reliance is not selfishness. It is the foundation of every alliance worth keeping. You cannot offer strength to a friend if you have none of your own.

Presidents’ Day should be uncomfortable. It should remind us how far we have drifted from the men we claim to honor. Washington did not need a holiday. He needed citizens willing to do hard things without being asked. Lincoln did not need a mattress sale. He needed a country willing to pay the cost of its own freedom.

Cedar Valley is a small town. We cannot shape foreign policy or rewrite trade agreements. But we can teach our children who Washington was and why he walked away from a crown. We can teach them who Lincoln was and why he walked into a war he knew would break his heart. We can honor the day not with a coupon, but with a conviction.

The question is not whether Rubio gave a good speech in Munich. The question is whether the country those presidents built still deserves the day we named for them.

The answer depends on what we do with it.

This editorial is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series. While the people and town are fictional, the national events they reflect on are real.

Want to know the full story behind Cedar Valley? Teresa, Caleb, Dan, and the community you’ve come to know in these editorials first came together in Quiet Echor. Discover how a small town found its way from fear to fellowship — one quiet act of courage at a time. Available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3ME4nSs

 

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