President's Day doesn't bring out exactly the same holiday spirit as other notable holidays.

"I'll be the only one at my house celebrating," said Brandon Rottinghaus, an assistant political science professor at the University of Houston, who spends many of his waking hours lecturing on the American leaders past and present.

When his students start to drift in class, he said only half-joking, he livens things up with some presidential trivia, or, worse, a presidential trivia quiz.

But here's the truth: Those old dudes were and are interesting, experts said, and the lessons they learned during their years of service still are relevant today.

To know more, we checked in with some professors who have spent their careers studying America's most elite group. Our panel of experts includes Rottinghaus; H.W. Brands, a history professor at the University of Texas; Cal Jillson, professor of political science at Southern Methodist University; and Glenn Linden, an associate professor of history at SMU.

Q: Why do Americans, as a group, love presidential candidates but practically crucify the one who gets elected?

A: "The candidate who promises the most has the best chance of winning," Brands said. "Then, of course, the voters are disappointed. But it's like a man courting a woman, or vice-versa. You put the best face on everything, and deal with the consequences later."

Rottinghaus paraphrased former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo: Politicians campaign with poetry, but govern with prose.

Q: Who are the two or three best presidents?

A: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The historians spoke in one voice on this one. Washington was the father of our country. Lincoln guided the country through the Civil War. Roosevelt led the nation through the Great Depression and World War II.

Q: Who were our worst presidents?

A: The two most often named as the worst are James Buchanan, who did little to nothing to prevent Southern states from seceding from the Union and triggering the Civil War, and Warren G. Harding, better known for looking presidential than acting presidential. Members of his administration created multiple scandals, and he was believed to have had multiple affairs.

Linden quoted Harding's father, saying, "He gets more sap out of a tree than anybody I know."

Upon Harding's death, poet e e cummings said, "The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead."

Brands also mentions Lyndon Johnson, who accomplished much for civil rights and his war on poverty but also escalated the war in Vietnam, and Richard Nixon, for subverting the U.S. Constitution during Watergate.

Q: Who were the least productive?

A: Brands names many, including Franklin Pierce ("I can't remember anything he did"), William Henry Harrison (who gave the longest inaugural address in U.S. history, then died one month later) and Benjamin Harrison ("but I keep forgetting him.")

The jury is still out, Brands said, on George W. Bush.

Linden names Millard Fillmore, Calvin Coolidge (upon the news that he had died, some quipped, "How can you tell?"), Herbert Hoover and Andrew Johnson.

Rottinghaus said Harding had a gambling habit and once bet the White House china and lost. The political scientist also added Ulysses S. Grant to the bad/mediocre list, too.

Q: Any presidential trivia or presidential stories that can't be missed?

A: Brands contributed the one about John Quincy Adams, who used to go swimming in the nude in the Potomac River.

One day someone walked off with his clothes, and in order to avoid exposing himself, he had to persuade a young male passer-by to run up to the White House and fetch him another outfit.

Brands also had a story about Rutherford Hayes. Brands said the most notable thing about Hayes' unremarkable presidency was that his wife earned the nickname Lemonade Lucy because she refused to serve wine or distilled spirits at White House dinners.

Word was the water flowed like wine.

And then, Brands said, there's the one about the famously terse Coolidge. Once a young woman approached him at a social gathering and explained that she'd made a bet that she could get him to say more than two words. She hoped, of course, that he would be a good sport and help her win.

Instead, he looked at her and said, "You lose."

There are many other stories but Brands ended with this one:

One of Theodore Roosevelt's three sons, Archie, was sick one day, and his brother, Quentin, decided he needed some good cheer, not to mention some laughs. So Quentin led their beloved pony, Algonquin, into the White House elevator, then down the hall to Archie's room. After the bedside visit from the pony and, no doubt, good medical care, Archie recovered nicely.

Rottinghaus, not to be outdone, reports that Harding gave his dog, Laddie Boy, a seat at the table during Cabinet meetings; that James Madison weighed no more than 100 pounds, while William Howard Taft was upward of 300 pounds; and that over the years, White House pets have veered toward the unusual. Teddy Roosevelt had a badger. Thomas Jefferson had for a very brief time grizzly bear cubs; Coolidge liked raccoons and Hoover's son had two pet alligators.