I had lunch with my friend Jack and his date, I’ll call Minnie, from Long Island.
Jack, whenever we meet, always asks what I’m reading, so I mention a book on Benjamin Franklin, by Stacy Schiff, I’ve just reread.
Minnie says, “Whoy,'” as she applies more lip gloss she certainly doesn’t need.
“Why? Because he’s so interesting,” I say, trying to just be polite realizing she’s another one of Jack’s dates I know won’t go anywhere, since, he gets bored so easily.
He told me he’s searching for a woman, just like me, but looks like an eternal centerfold. A Minnie, with interests other than sex toys, backseats and what’s on the dessert cart.
A Miss January, who reads.
But back to Ben.
Jack loves when I go on one of my historical rants, so at his urging, I’m off to the Revolutionary Races.
Ben, the eldest Founding Father who famously said to his peers…
We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately, caused confusion for Minnie. Even after I urbanned it with…either we hang together or we hang alone, did she say…
“What does that mean?”
“Well, if we hadn’t won our independence from Britain, he along with the other Founding Fathers would have been drawn and quartered, then hanged, for treason.”
“HUH?”
“Their heads would have been cut off and put on spikes, ya know, like those troll erasers you get on pencils?”
“OH!”
After regaining myself, I apologize, but she actually now seems interested after Jack says, she loves slasher films.
“OH!”
Alas, that was the best I could do in the horror department, but then told my favorite Ben story, how in 1788, one of the oldest synagogues in Philadelphia was about to go under, so Ben raised funds to keep it afloat, restoring it, still existing today.
When he died in 1790 at 85, as his funeral cortege solemnly made its way through downtown Philadelphia, the entire Congregation of Mikveh Israel, walked behind his casket in tribute, to show their gratitude.
Minnie, who turns out to be Jewish, is in tears.
“That’s the best story eva’,” she says, sobbing into her Chicken Caesar.
Jack then sweetly hands her a napkin, so she can blow her nose she immediately powders.
P.S. Did I mention Ben sired the first library? ![😊]()
Liberry?
Library. ![🙃]()
Recommended reading. There are many Ben books, but these two are my favorites.
A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America…Stacy Schiff (2005).
The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin…H.W.Brands (2000).
SB