Founding Daddies

So with the help of my scholar boyfriend, I have laid hands upon another copy of Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton. You'll recall that I had to give one copy back to the public library. The timing is exquisite, since today is the 200th anniversary of the gunfight in which Aaron Burr mortally wounded Hamilton. They were dueling over something or other. So much drama. (Naturally the event was reenacted.)

The book really does cast a spell. I fantasize that I will fall asleep reading it and, like in some Looney Tune, wake to find myself smack dab in the middle of the American Revolution. I'll have a musket and a powdered wig, and I will be a campy gay Minuteman. "Wake up, the British are coming! Grab your rifle!" "Not till I put my face on!"

Chernow writes of the Sons of Liberty, the group of patriotic agitators, and reading about them has put that maddening song from the 1957 Disney movie Johnny Tremain in my head. If you don't know the song, you're lucky.