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On the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII, banners appeared detailing what happened on each day of the last month of the war. Large maps showed the progress of allied troops. That year the senior class brought a seedling bred from a huge tulip poplar on Franklin Roosevelt's estate and dedicated it to veterans of the war in our towns, Lincoln and Sudbury. At graduation, a senior called her grandfather up and symbolically presented him with the tree's memorial plaque. On the 350th anniversary of the Town of Sudbury, we buried a time capsule with school artifacts. The 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage proved very useful in rasing all kinds of questions about courage, colonization, and conquest. The hallways were turned into a scale model of the ocean crossing, and students could follow Columbus' progress by an arrow taped to the floor, as the Santa Maria sailed its way from the Language office around English and Science, and down the home stretch to the main office.
I don't think I've ever missed doing something on Lincoln's birthday. He was
my hero when I was a kid. He still is.