Who really is mourning?

I don't mean to in any way disparage or degrade the late President Ford, or minimize the loss.

His friends and family would, reasonably, need time to mourn. There should be some public recognition of the passing of a public figure.

However, consider that a large number of workers in the government and financial sectors got January 2 off, ostensibly to mourn? How many of them were actually mourning?

Also, try this thought experiment: assuming you didn't get that day off, if you called into work and said, "I need to take the day off. I need to mourn the death of President Ford," how do you think your boss would have responded?

I don't have a good answer to this one, but I don't think we're, as a society, completely honest with ourselves on this point. Somber memorial-oriented holidays (think Memorial Day, Veterans' Day, and Martin Luther King Day for three annual examples) always seem turn into a fun days off.