Me and the Founding Fathers (on the eve of Obama’s election)
Last November, I showed up at an out-of-town meeting one day too early. So there I was – next to Independence Hall in Philadelphia with an entire day stretching out before me. This was not like another occasion when I had unexpected free time. I’d been ambushed by a pink slip wielding VP and found myself back at home before noon, drunk dialing old friends – having finished off a couple bottles of champagne I’d been saving for a happier occasion.
No – this was more like that day in first grade when my Mom dropped me off at my parochial school. That day when neither of us had gotten the note that said it “was not a school day”. Before cell phones, one didn’t call a parent’s place of work about such matters. I spent the entire day in the jump seat of a Ford station wagon full of visibly inconvenienced nuns as they buzzed around town doing errands. I’d give anything to remember where we had lunch, what they bought and what movie we saw. It might have been “The Sound of Music.”
So back in Philadelphia with time to kill, I took every tour the Park Service had to offer. As I walked from Independence Hall to the adjacent Liberty Bell installation, I felt exhilarated while I listened to the retelling of how our country was founded. I especially enjoyed the parts where rabble rousers roamed the streets, knocking down statues of King George.
I’d clearly been brainwashed growing up near Boston. (Of course I found that out then I first visited New Mexico twenty years earlier). But Philadelphia was a refinement of that previous reality check. In Massachusetts, we were given to understand that the Pilgrims’ landing in 1620 and The Revolution of 1776 (with details like the clackity clack of the ride down to the Charles River to toss the tea overboard) were the seminal events in Colonial history. Wrong!
Having received my latest update from the Park Service guide, I could feel every neat brick, dormer and garden in historic Philly silently reproaching our tour group’s carefree modernity: our compulsive shopping, our house flipping, our celebrity worship. (Ed. note: Yes, this was at the crest before the economic freefall.)
I liked thinking that the founding fathers were smiling down on us that day, pleased that the system they created gave us a Barack Obama on the upcoming ballot.
