Sometime in the new year, I’ll present a talk to The Saratoga Springs Historical Society on the topic of George Washington, a task for which I am richly unqualified. But this kind of impediment never stopped me before, so Katie bar the door! One historian said that “Washington is in our wallets, but not in our hearts”. He’s a remote, stoney figure - not a slammin’ hottie wordsmith like Jefferson, cuddly and jokey like Franklin or too-hip-for-the-room like Hamilton. Funnily enough, George believed one of his greatest talents was “the gift of Silence” and that was certainly true in 1787 when the Convention in Philly was riven by pettiness and contending regional issues. GW let everybody talk as long as they wanted, then said, “Right, here’s what we’re going to do”. Most of what we know about Our First is hokum (the I Cannot Tell a Lie routine) or exaggeration (he married into money). The talents I bring to my talk will be those of a third-rate adjunct at a fourth-rate community in a down-at-the-heels rustbelt town, if that clown came thisclose to not getting a teaching certificate. In my speech I’ll reveal how George thought of himself verses what we think of him - a profound difference.
© 2024 John Oliver
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