Reprinted from March, 2013.
My wife, an elementary school librarian, was teaching about presidents and read a short biography of Washington to a kindergarten class for Presidents' Day. Such teaching always involves quizzing, both to reinforce the material and to get them used to interactive learning and paying attention to the key material. "Do you know who our first president was? Several voices reported that it was George Washington.
"He's dead, isn't he?" one girl asked. My wife nodded. There was a serious pause - the belated mourning of an age group which knows that death is a loss but does not have a good grasp of time scales.
"I miss George Washington," one little boy said quietly. My wife's reply was heartfelt and genuine: "So do I."
I recently had a conversation (on Facebook) about Trump's biggest problem is that he isn't "presidential". This person stated approval of some of his actions, Middle Eastern diplomacy, specifically -- but that wasn't enough to overcome his rude, crude, social unacceptablity. And then this post about George Washington and the sidebar link to the Quillette article, "Sex and the American Presidency" which asserts that he set the standard for all Presidents to follow... as asexuals.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, I miss George Washington too, partly because I know nothing about his sex life.
As I re-read the above paragraphs and cringe at the grammar, I decide not to change anything because since nothing else matters, I'm also going to pronounce the L in salmon.