John Adams & the HBO version...

It's almost Independence Day - do something patriotic and watch the John Adams story. Maybe it will prompt you to think more deeply about what makes our country unique and special. And then maybe it will prompt more of us to vote and work in line with our original core values.

As always, anything that appears on the television is almost automatically not 100% reliable information. There are plenty of sources out there that critique HBO for what they get wrong in their version of David McCullough's story of John Adams. But most of it is helpful information.

Breathtaking is the best word to use when describing the background scenery, the attention to detail of the clothing and mannerisms and diction. The visual effect of the series is a historical experience. And learning - (not for the first time) about the issues that prompted America to rebel against Britain is always an interesting task. Truth is stranger than fiction. And facts are stubborn things.

John Adams is not a well known character, though his name is remembered. According to this series, Adams is principled, just, devoted to his wife, and yet vain, neglectful of his children, and petty towards those who disagree with him. He is brilliant in the right moments, and a blunderer in the wrong moments. He makes important contributions, but then he isn't willing to move aside and let others make theirs.

As a father of young children, I could identify with Adam's struggle to leave his family in order to serve the Continental Congress. And it was painful to watch this father's relationship with his son Charles degenerate into a terrible mess. Charles made wrong choices, but he also grew up without a father whom he needed very much, especially his affection and attention.

Interesting that the series makes no mention whatsoever of John Adam's Christian faith and practices. New England at the time was very religious, so clearly HBO would not have been playing favorites if they showed Adams to be devout. Unfortunately HBO let secular views prevail over purely historical accounts.

The music is great - and the imagery that accompanies the opening scenes of each show is riveting. The image of the snake mystified me - where did that metaphor come from? Well, after some research, I now know. Short version: an American rattlesnake with thirteen rattles became a symbol for the young nations' effort to defend itself against unjust aggressors. Ben Franklin had used a diced up snake (thirteen pieces) with the phrase "Don't Tread on Me" as a political cartoon - stirring up sentiment for the colonies to unite as one under the threat of further British oppression.

Apparently American politics as we know it was just as common then as it is now. The art of compromise, the party politics, the interest of big business, the interests of the mob - all are realities now in this post-modern age, as they were in the beginning. Nothing new under the sun...

My friend Jon Davison has been insisting that I read McCullough's book. I will. Interested to know more about the factors that played into the founding of our country, as well as the role that the eccentric John Adams had in it. Click here for some pics of Adams.

1776 - Year of Perseverance

It's been a long time since I took my US History class in high school. The details of the founding of our country are a bit hazy to me. So it was with glee that I got my hands on David McCullough's brilliant retelling of that difficult year in which we proclaimed independence from England. My goal is to read McCulllough's other books - especially on John Adams and Theodore Roosevelt.

I was surprised to learn how many times the Contintental Army was on the verge of defeat - and yet somehow Washington and his generals were able to either draw back in retreat, or survive a defeat only because the British forces didn't know how badly beaten were the Americans. It was also revealing to learn more details about Washington's life. I only know that he had a beautiful home on Mt. Vernon (thanks to the movie National Treasure 2), and that he confessed to cutting down his father's cherry tree (as legend has it). Oh, and I think I knew that he later went on to own many parcels of land. But I really knew nothing about him as a general - except for the famous picture of him praying in Valley Forge.

Here's one of the closing quotes on him that summarizes his legacy as a general:

He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual. At several crucial moments he had shown marked indecisiveness. He had made serious mistakes in judgment. But experience had been his great teacher from boyhood, and in this his greatest test, he learned steadily from experience. Above all, Washington never fort what was at stake and he never gave up.

Again and again, in letters to Congress and to his officers, and in his general orders, he had called for perserverance - for "perseverance and spirit," for "patience and perseverance," for "unremitting courage and perseverance." Soon after the victories of Trenton and Princeton, he had written: "A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove."

Fascinating.

Here's the final quote that sums up the story of the book, of the war, and specifically the year 1776:

The war was a longer, far more arduous, and more painful struggle than later generations would understand or sufficiently appreciate. By the time it ended, it had taken the lives of an estimated 25,000 Americans, or roughly 1 percent of the population. In percentage of lives lost, it was the most costly war in American history, except for the Civil War.

The year 1776, celebrated as the birth year of the nation and for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few-victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too, they would never forget.

I finished the book with an emotional thud - what? this is the end of the year? already? After a year of loss after loss, retreat after retreat, they finally get two victories in Trenton and Princeton that turn the tide. I suppose it's a story worth remembering about perseverance, about how long it takes to get that first victory, about believing in the rightness of your cause, about leadership and it's loneliness, about being in the fray, about loyalty to those who follow.