7.3.2026 – Second Day July

Second Day July
1776
most memorable

As I will be traveling and with family for the 4th of July Holiday, I prepared a series of three holiday haiku based on the same letter.

It is a letter written by John Adams to his wife, Abigail, where Mr. Adams described the events of July 2, 1776 when the resolution of independence was adopted with twelve affirmative votes and one abstention, and the colonies formally severed political ties with Great Britain.

But on July 4th, the Declaration of Independence was ratified and approved so that the Declaration starts out … In Congress, July 4th … and so it went down in history.

Writing on July 3rd, Mr. Adams felt it would be the Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epocha.

The most memorable day in history.

This is the first in the series and is based on the lines But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epocha, in the History of America.

Here is his letter.

Philadelphia July 3d. 1776

Had a Declaration of Independency been made seven Months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Effects . . . . We might before this Hour, have formed Alliances with foreign States. — We should have mastered Quebec and been in Possession of Canada …. You will perhaps wonder, how such a Declaration would have influenced our Affairs, in Canada, but if I could write with Freedom I could easily convince you, that it would, and explain to you the manner how. — Many Gentlemen in high Stations and of great Influence have been duped, by the ministerial Bubble of Commissioners to treat …. And in real, sincere Expectation of this effort Event, which they so fondly wished, they have been slow and languid, in promoting Measures for the Reduction of that Province. Others there are in the Colonies who really wished that our Enterprise in Canada would be defeated, that the Colonies might be brought into Danger and Distress between two Fires, and be thus induced to submit. Others really wished to defeat the Expedition to Canada, lest the Conquest of it, should elevate the Minds of the People too much to hearken to those Terms of Reconciliation which they believed would be offered Us. These jarring Views, Wishes and Designs, occasioned an opposition to many salutary Measures, which were proposed for the Support of that Expedition, and caused Obstructions, Embarrassments and studied Delays, which have finally, lost Us the Province.

All these Causes however in Conjunction would not have disappointed Us, if it had not been for a Misfortune, which could not be foreseen, and perhaps could not have been prevented, I mean the Prevalence of the small Pox among our Troops …. This fatal Pestilence compleated our Destruction. — It is a Frown of Providence upon Us, which We ought to lay to heart.

But on the other Hand, the Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it. — The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished. — Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. — This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776.

7.2.2026 – decency standards

decency standards
mark the maturing progress
of society

In a 1958 Supreme Court case, Trop v. Dulles, the Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to revoke citizenship as a punishment for a crime. The ruling’s reference to “evolving standards of decency” is frequently cited in Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. This according to Wikipedia.

The Opinion of the Court was authored by Chief Justice Earl Warren, who discussed the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. Ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, these protections apply equally to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Chief Justice Warren commented on Capitol Punishment, writing:

Whatever the arguments may be against capital punishment, both on moral grounds and in terms of accomplishing the purposes of punishment — and they are forceful — the death penalty has been employed throughout our history, and, in a day when it is still widely accepted, it cannot be said to violate the constitutional concept of cruelty.

But it is equally plain that the existence of the death penalty is not a license to the Government to devise any punishment short of death within the limit of its imagination.

Then the Chief wrote this:

The Court recognized in that case that the words of the Amendment are not precise, and that their scope is not static.

The Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.

Say that last little bit out loud, I dare you.

Evolving standards of decency mark the progress of a maturing society.

Evolving standards of decency?

Mark the progress of a maturing society?

What does that say of American Society today?

Declining standards of decency mark the regression from maturity for any society.

If this current administration has any standard its a standard of how low can you go.

Maturing?

Let see, we got ourselves a 4 year leading the nation who wonders out loud about awarding himself the Congressional Medal of Honor and a congress ready to authorize such an award.

Decency?

I don’t have the time of the stomach to list the decline in our society’s standards.

But that statement, Evolving standards of decency mark the progress of a maturing society sure hit close to home for the day in history that saw the Declaration of Independence voted on.

Print shows men gathered in the Assembly Room in the Pennsylvania State House (now called Independence Hall), Philadelphia. Completed figures include John Adams, Roger Sherman, James Wilson and Thomas Jefferson, handing a document to John Hancock, president of the Congress. Seated in the front from left to right are Samuel Adams, Robert Morris, Benjamin Franklin (in a Windsor chair), Charles Carroll and Stephen Hopkins (wearing a dark hat). (Source: American Antiquarian Society catalog, 2008)

6.28.2026 – who ever saw a

who ever saw a
dead congressman? yet, he was a
man with a sharp tongue

Adapted from the passage in the poem, John Brown’s Body by Stephen Vincent Benét as published in Selected works of Stephen Vincent Benét (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942), where Mr. Benét writes:

Fighting Joe Hooker once
Said with that tart, unbridled tongue of his
That made so many needless enemies,
“Who ever saw a dead cavalryman?”
The phrase
Stings with a needle sharpness, just or not,
But even he was never heard to say,
“Who ever saw a dead congressman?”
And yet, he was a man with a sharp tongue.

At Mr. Twain wrote in Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

I feel like we are on the Titanic and the lifeboats are full of members of Congress who wave back at us as the boats row away.

6.21.2026 – my father paints the

my father paints the
summer, caught summer always
an imagined time

A smoky rain riddles the ocean plains,
Rings on the beaches’ stones, stomps in the swales,
Batters the panes
Of the shore hotel, and the hoped-for summer chills and fails.
The summer people sigh,
“Is this July?”

They talk by the lobby fire but no one hears
For the thrum of rain. In the dim and sounding halls,
Din at the ears,
Dark at the eyes well in the head, and the ping-pong balls
Scatter their hollow knocks
Like crazy clocks.

But up in his room by artificial light
My father paints the summer, and his brush
Tricks into sight
The prosperous sleep, the girdling stir and clear steep hush
Of a summer never seen,
A granted green.

Summer, luxuriant Sahara, the orchard spray
Gales in the Eden trees, the knight again
Can cast away
His burning mail, Rome is at Anzio: but the rain
For the ping-pong’s optative bop
Will never stop.

Caught Summer is always an imagined time.
Time gave it, yes, but time out of any mind.
There must be prime
In the heart to beget that season, to reach past rain and find
Riding the palest days
Its perfect blaze.

My Father Paints the Summer by Richard Purdy Wilbur in The Poems of Richard Wilbur (Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1947).

About Mr. Wilbur, Wikipedia says, “Richard Purdy Wilbur (March 1, 1921 – October 14, 2017) was an American poet and literary translator, and one of the foremost poets of the World War II generation. Wilbur’s work, often employing rhyme, and composed primarily in traditional forms, was marked by its wit, charm, and gentlemanly elegance. He was acclaimed in his youth as the heir to Robert Frost, translated the verse dramas of Moliere, Corneille, and Racine into rhymed English, collaborated with Leonard Bernstein as the lyricist for the opera Candide, and in his old age acted, particularly through his role in the annual West Chester University Poetry Conference, as a mentor to the younger poets of the New Formalist movement. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987 and received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice, in 1957 and 1989.”

About the photo, if I think about my Dad, I cannot but think of my Dad at what we called ‘The Cottage.”

In the Spring of 1964, when I was 4 years, my Dad but a piece of property on the shore of Lake Michigan, a straight drive out M-45 to the lake from Grand Rapids where we lived.

It became our summer place and our place for summer time and it is where my Dad painted the summer.

In a letter written home from Europe during World War 2, my Dad told the woman who would become my Mom that “He liked to live in the whole house” which I took to mean that in his home, there would be nothing for show, no rooms reserved for company, he would live in the WHOLE house.

You could not have described life at our cottage any better.

My Dad lived in the whole place.

Every inch of property, cottage and beach was set aside to be used and used pretty much for anyone’s personal enjoyment.

I have never been any where else in the world that I experienced such freedom to live, explore, read, think or do anything that came to mind.

There was a lot of trust involved here and for the most part, we repaid that trust and just LIVED the heck out of this place.

Look at the photo.

A large, ungainly structure covered with windows for viewing the lake, chairs for sitting, towels drying, toys scattered all over for playing, a grill for cooking, sails for the sailboat propped up against the stairs and thousands of footprints of the 100s of people that made up our summers at the lake.

All in a place provided by my Dad.

My father painted the summer with a big thick brush and broad strokes.

The year after my Dad died, Mom sold the place.

She said, and understand the entire time we had the cottage it was the Hotel Lorraine and everyone was welcome, she said, “It was my place to be with Dad.”

Caught Summer is always an imagined time.

Time gave it, yes, but time out of any mind.

There must be prime

In the heart to beget that season, to reach past rain and find

Riding the palest days

Its perfect blaze.

Forgive but I have to repeat that line again where Mr. Wilbur writes, Caught Summer is always an imagined time.

Was it real?

Could it have been that way?

Caught Summer is always an imagined time.

I am here to tell you, it was all too real and when I think about it, I think of my Dad and I say thank you for the gift of all those summers you painted for us.

6.20.2026 – summer when the lungs

summer when the lungs
of the earth take a long breath
I look for you

Do you know how the dream looms?

how if summer misses one of us the two of us miss summer –

Summer when the lungs of the earth take a long breath for the change to low contralto singing mornings when the green corn leaves first break through the black loam-

And another long breath for the silver soprano melody of the moon songs in the light nights when the earth is lighter than a feather, the iron mountains lighter than a goose down-

So I shall look for you in the light nights then, in the laughter of slats of silver under a hill hickory.

In the listening tops of the hickories, in the wind motions of the hickory shingle leaves, in the imitations of slow sea water on the shingle silver in the wind –

I shall look for you.

Silver Wind by Carl Sandburg as published in Smoke and Steel in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950).

On the beach today.

In the listening tops of the hickories, in the wind motions of the hickory shingle leaves, in the imitations of slow sea water on the shingle silver in the wind.

I look for you.

But you took the picture.

BTW, recently talked with my sister who had the opportunity to spend some time on the Gulf of MEXICO and on the Lake Michigan shore.

She noticed that in going to the Gulf to swim, the water was always warm … every day … you could count on it.

On Lake Michigan, the question every day if not every hour is, how does the water feel right now?

A stiff north wind and the water on the beach on Lake Michigan can go from 70s to 60s in a matter of hours.

Today for me, the water was 82.

The air was in the high 80s.

It will be that way all summer long.

And another long breath for the silver soprano melody of the moon song.