Constable: What Honest Abe kept in his pockets

We celebrate Presidents Day with a chance to shovel snow, stay home from work or school, or at least enjoy a less crowded commute. But it is also a day to kick back and delve into something presidential, such as what Abraham Lincoln had in his pockets on the night he was assassinated.

You'd think the pockets of a man regarded as perhaps our greatest president would carry monumental pieces of history - maybe a rough draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, a copy of his Gettysburg Address, or a selfie with Frederick Douglass. But Lincoln, who was 56 years old, carried items that probably could be found in the pockets of many suburban dads and granddads. I find some of the same things whenever I venture into the back of the closet to pull out a sports jacket that I haven't worn since the last funeral I attended.

For instance, Lincoln carried an oversized white handkerchief, which is a habit I inherited from my dad. I know it's unsightly and a little disgusting when you think about it, but if a handkerchief was good enough for Honest Abe, who am I to disagree?

Lincoln was shot in the back of the head with a .44-caliber gun while attending the theater on April 14, 1865. He was shot by an actor who wasn't as highly regarded as his acting brother, which would be the modern equivalent of getting shot by Stephen Baldwin. The unconscious Lincoln was carried to a boardinghouse across the street where he was pronounced dead at 7:22 a.m. on April 15, the day before Easter.

Lincoln got dressed up to go to Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, so you might expect him to have a wad of cash and some fancy accessories. His handkerchief was made of Irish linen and had "A. Lincoln" embroidered in red cross-stitch, which is more elegant than any snot rag carried by modern middle-aged men. Lincoln's pockets also contained a watch fob of gold-bearing quartz, which is fancier than my Timex with the leather band. And the president did carry a six-bladed ivory pocketknife, which might not be allowed in some theaters today.

After that, Lincoln's pocket contents were surprisingly ordinary.

His pockets contained two pairs of reading glasses and a cloth device to clean them. One pair, which I'm guessing he never used, folded up to fit in a case. The other was held together with a piece of string. I could open the junk drawer in my kitchen and pull out a similar pair of glasses jury-rigged with tape.

In one pocket, Lincoln had a sleeve button monogrammed with a gold "L." It's comforting to think that perhaps the president, as I have done countless times, simply grabbed a button that was about to fall off and stuck it in his pocket with the idea that he'd sew it on before the next time he wore that coat.

Lincoln's wallet, which makes me envious because it included a pencil, was similar to mine in that it contained stuff but no cash. While my wallet has credit cards, Lincoln apparently didn't have to worry about how to pay for things. The only currency he had in his wallet was a Confederate $5 bill.

The bill, rendered worthless by the surrender of the Civil War rebel forces earlier that week, featured a drawing of the Virginia State Capitol and the likeness of Christopher Gustavus Memminger, who had been secretary of the treasury for the Confederate states. Historians think Lincoln picked it up during a visit to Virginia earlier that month.

His wallet also carried eight newspaper clippings, all favorable to his presidency. The items, all stored in The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana at the Library of Congress, make me feel a little connection to the president from the Land of Lincoln.

It also makes me curious. What is President Donald J. Trump carrying around in his pockets?