My Mind Warped History & Rethinking things

Yesterday was Independence Day in the ol’USA. Some refer to it as the birthday of America which is misleading as there was a long labor that lasted something like eight years (1775-1783) before the delivery of America. July 4th is really just the date that fifty-six men signed America’s birth certificate ... one of the most monumental work of words ever written: The Declaration of Independence. Except that didn’t really happen as most of the men actually signed the thing in August and had declared the intent to be independent on July 2.

Are you confused yet? Just think of it as the way it usually goes with a pregnancy or meal planning - some folks like to define their participation by being present at the Big Bang conception (“Hey, let’s dine on something light yet fruity” or “There you go, I did my part so proceedeth hasty like and birth me a young’un!”) and the receiving end of the labor and delivery line (“Boy, that was some fine pear tart I just ate!” or “Look, I have a kid!”)... everything else ” (like pregnancy, war, grocery shopping, making crusts) is of minor importance.

Thomas Jefferson drew this beautiful document up, I believed, with great wisdom, ink made of elderberry juice, and a pointy bird feather on a fat piece of unlined parchment in the comfort of his study at Monticello on a sunny afternoon as he smiled upon his children playing Marco Polo upon the green lawn just outside the window near his desk. Sigh. But it doesn’t look like it happened that way. For one reason Jefferson’s children at the time were still in diapers. He also undoubtedly had access to India ink which was really invented by the Chinese, but let's don't get started on that. I read that someone's clerk probably was responsible for the actual handwriting of the Declaration version we are familiar with ... the version that wasn’t even ordered by congress until July 19, 1776. I was more than a little miffed at this revelation.

Which brings me to the real point I was working toward. Come Monday, I was just fixing to use this as a homeschooling force:

“Look, you capable yet somewhat slacker children who would like to take 13 days to write simple essays, this Jefferson fellow whipped this up in one sitting without college-ruled notebook paper or an eraser! And would you look at that fine penmanship?” (Notice I wasn’t bringing up the oddly capitalized words).

And now, realizing that I had absorbed most of my history knowledge during the highly romanticized U.S. Bicentennial Era of my childhood and not during the great opportunity of having a bonafide historian as a high school history instructor, I will have to rethink my uplifting speech to include some actual truths. Hopefully I will come up with something as inspiring that will spare my children from wondering 30 some years later how they had gotten everything so wrong ... like me. Hey, even if Jefferson didn't handwrite that courageous document up so lovely like -someone DID - right? And Jefferson was the mastermind - right? You might want to wish me luck : )