9.9.2025 – There! John Bull can read

There! John Bull can read
my name without spectacles …
lessons from legends

It will be remembered that a reward was offered for the head of John Hancock. When he signed the Declaration of Independence he did it was a bold hand, in a conspicuous manner, and rose from his seat, pointing to it, and said, “There, John Bull can read my name without spectacles, he may double his reward, and I put his at defiance.”

So Mr. Michael Hancock of the National Archives History Office writes in the blog post, John Hancock and His Signature, from the National Archives Blog, Pieces of History.

Sure sure who knows if Mr. Hancock really said it or if he did say it, was anyone around to hear him say it.

But that isn’t my point.

As for the story, I agree with the line, When the legend becomes fact, print the legend because it goes with my point.

Mr. Hancock signed in such a way, for whatever reason, to be remembered and with a flourish.

And we can learn a lesson from that.

Not sure when I first heard the story about Mr. Hancock but it is easy to say that in school in the United States, I was never taught anything about the history of the Declaration of Independence that the story about Mr. Hancock, his signature and King George and his glasses wasn’t told.

Also back when I was in high school, we were asked to sign up for something and the kid in line ahead of me scribbled his name and the teacher looked at it and said something about having a signature that showed you were proud of your name and who were.

Ever since that day I have worked to have a bold, clear signature on the few documents of importance I have ever had to sign.

Not sure why but signatures and signing things and who signed what are much on my mind today.

Kind of goes with that old line of don’t sign a check your butt can’t cash.

Just be careful what you sign.

Checks.

Contracts.

Birthday Cards.

9.8.2025 – so much disturbing

so much disturbing
our lives, clouding our future
our unhappy land

Adapted from the essay Letter from the East (Allen Cove, February 8, 1975) written by EB White as published in The Essays of EB White by EB White (Harper and Row, New York, 1977).

Mr. White writes:

With so much that is disturbing our lives and clouding our future, beginning right here in my own little principality, with its private pools of energy (the woodpile, the black stove, the germ in the seed, the chick in the egg), and extending outward to our unhappy land and our plundered planet, it is hard to foretell what is going to happen.

I know one thing that has happened: the willow by the brook has slipped into her yellow dress, lending, along with the faded pink of the snow fences, a spot of color to the vast gray-and-white world. I know, too, that on some not too distant night, somewhere in pond or ditch or low place, a frog will awake, raise his voice in praise, and be joined by others. I will feel a whole lot better when I hear the frogs.

My take was the air of foreboding and doom for our unhappy land back in 1975.

I guess every generation has to handle this feeling and figure it out.

I was 15 in 1975 and the future did not seem to did not seem so bad

So here is the 15 year olds of today and a hope for their future.

We walk often late in the evening to beat the heat here in the low country and our sidewalks line deep dark forests with swampy marshland.

We walk along as dusk settles and 1,000s upon 1,000s of frogs wake up and raise their voices in praise.

As we walk along the treeland swamps, we think, what is that sound?

Tonight, maybe, when we hear it, I will feel a whole lot better.

And the radio is playing Jean Sibelius: Organ Symphony … how can someone be unhappy?

9.7.2025 – turn the corner, page

turn the corner, page
not a book, but a circle
it all starts over

Think you turn a corner on your life.

Think you turn a page on your life.

But life isn’t a world of left and right turns.

All the turns go left.

But life isn’t a book.

Life is a circle and your make all the turns you can.

Make all the turns you want.

Make all the turns you think you can make, the turns you think are under your control.

All the turns are to the left.

And you are right back where you started.

Life isn’t square or a book.

Life is a circle.

Sometimes you don’t pass go.

Sometimes you go directly to jail.

But you finish where you started.

So go ahead.

It’s your turn.

9.6.2025 -take hold of the hope

take hold of the hope
hope as an anchor for the
soul, firm and secure

Adapted from the Bible passage at Hebrews 6:17-19 (NIV).

Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.

God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

9.5.2025 – when the tide goes out

when the tide goes out
little water world becomes
quiet and lovely

It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef.

But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely.

The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals.

Crabs rush from frond to frond of the waving algae.

Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock.

And then the starfish stomach comes out and envelops its food.

Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers.

And black eels poke their heads out of crevices and wait for prey.

The snapping shrimps with their trigger claws pop loudly.

The lovely, colored world is glassed over.

Hermit crabs like frantic children scamper on the bottom sand.

And now one, finding an empty snail shell he likes better than his own, creeps out, exposing his soft body to the enemy for a moment, and then pops into the new shell.

A wave breaks over the barrier, and chums.

From Cannery row by John Steinbeck (Viking, New York, 1945)