2002-06-05 -

Adams and Jefferson and Bears, Oh My!

Watched the rest of "Founding Brothers" last night. The final days of Jefferson and Adams make such a poetic little story that I can barely believe it happened that way. It caught my imagination in a personal way, which history doesn't usually do. (That is, my imagination gets caught wondering what X event or time was like, but rarely by wondering what any individual felt.) These two men were the last of their generation. They were surrounded by people who took their lives' work for granted. Only they recalled what it was truly like to build this country. They became friends after years of intense enmity because they had to share those memories with someone, and they were the only ones left.

Trippy.

I especially recall their final days. With the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence coming up, some townsfolk asked Adams for a few words on the subject. He said, "Independence Forever!" They asked him to elaborate. He declined. At that point, for him, that was all that needed to be said. And yet, for the people he was talking to, it seemed trite- of *course* we had independence!

Jefferson's last words were equally simple. As he lay dying the morning of July Fourth, 1826, he asked, "Is it the Fourth?" And then he spoke no more until he died.

I think he'd spit on what this nation has turned into. I wish he had the chance.

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