Liberty!

The crude commercialism of America, its materialising spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and of high unattainable ideals, are entirely due to that country having adopted for its national hero a man who, according to his own confession, was incapable of telling a lie, and it is not too much to say that the story of George Washington and the cherry-tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space of time, than any other moral tale in the whole of literature.
-- Oscar Wilde

Monday, February 15, 1999
One year ago: Valentine

I am almost well again. I'll go for hours without coughing, then suddenly be seized by a wracking, hacking paroxysm, which then departs as mysteriously as it came. This only happened a few times today, though, so the trends are good. Thank heaven this bout of illness didn't last as long as the cold (plus secondary infection, I'm sure) that I had last summer (July 24 through August 2). It seems like many other journalers are also sick. Well, it is the cold and flu season, as they are always saying on TV commercials for over-the-counter remedies.

Can I blame my bone-laziness and procrastination on having a cold? I could, except that I have these flaws all the time, not just now. And these aren't the kind of faults that I accuse myself of having in that cute, secretly proud of myself way. I've gotten myself in trouble by putting things off since elementary school! I have these ideas about stuff to take care of, I think of them while I'm driving home. But then I take a nap, get online, and those tasks go by the wayside for the evening.

I need to start putting into practice all that good advice I read in the alt.recovery.clutter newsgroup, and try to do at least one thing every day, even if it's as small as throwing away one piece of paper.

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I watched another episode of Liberty!, a PBS series about the American Revolution. Jack and I watched this the other week (thought I see I didn't mention it), and I really liked it! Jack's made quite a study of this period, but I resisted borrowing any books from him about it, for now. When I was growing up in Northern Virginia, this was one of the main topics taught us in history.

The title, with an exclamation mark, does amuse me. I'd almost expect that it's a musical comedy version, like Oklahoma! I actually saw 1776 (or try this one), a musical setting of the writing of the Declaration, on stage around the Bicentennial. This was certainly a rare family outing. I think my father and brother were even there, and getting my father out of the house, to go to the theater? I can't think of another occasion!