Everything Old Is New Again

Even this blog, apparently. HA! I don't have a good excuse for where I have been. Oh yes I do. My life is so boring even *I* don't want to read about it. So much has happened in the world since I last blogged**. New president at the helm, Troy Aikman finished his college degree***, Jessica Simpson is fat now****. So much news, so little time.

So let's start with today. I met a young lady for breakfast who is pretty special to me. She was a page in the way back year of. . . oh, well year is irrelevant. Suffice it to say, she is all grown up now. She was in town visiting and I was so excited to catch up with her. After breakfast, I wasn't quite in the mood to go home, so I got a hitch in my giddyup to go to the National Archives. I have never been there before and I had seen an advertisement that they were raising the Emancipation Proclamation in celebration of the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. I waited on line one hour to view the document, and it was TOTALLY worth it. After I viewed the EP, I went over and saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I didn't even realize that the Constitution was available for viewing - last I heard it was only raised once a week for public viewing. But apparently the public rotunda of the Archives has been renovated and the Constitution lives there, on full display. A to the MAZING. I think I cried a little*****.

So while at the Archives, I meandered around to see what else they had. I came upon this:

The picture is totally craptastic. I did not think to bring a camera, since this was kind of a last-minute plan. Plus the lighting is really dim in the Archives for preservation purposes. Plus I am terrible at taking pictures with my phone. Plus that is my finger in the bottom of the frame. But anyway. . . that is a letter sent anonymously from a soldier who fought in the Civil War to the Secretary of the Treasury. It seems that this man was accidentally given two loaves of bread while serving in the military, when in fact he was only entitled to one. And he ate the second loaf. 36 years after the war ended, he sent this letter with $1 to pay for the loaf of bread that wasn't his. The letter says that his conscience wouldn't let him rest until he paid for the bread that was not his.

Since guilt and feeling badly are two of my specialties, this letter really touched my heart. The whole section of the Archives devoted to citizen letters really moved me. Here is another bad picture. This letter was sent to President Eisenhower by three teenage girls begging him not to make Elvis Presley get a G.I. haircut. If you look closely you can see at the bottom it says "Elvis Presley Lovers". HAHA.


There was a telegram from a father to President FDR thanking him for a speech he gave that cheered him up after learning that his son had been killed in Pearl Harbor. There was a letter from a County Commissioner in NJ to the FCC complaining that the War of the Worlds broadcast had caused mass panic and hysteria. And there was a letter from a little girl to President Eisenhower with a drawing of what she thought the American flag should look like now that Alaska was added. At the bottom of the letter she wrote "sorry to bother you." Who do you know would enclose a sentiment like that on a letter????

OH guess what else I saw?? Documents relating to the inquiry into the Titanic, the passenger log from the ship that brought Bob Hope to the USA when he was 4 years old, Rosa Parks' arrest documentation and a letter from George Washington stating that the troops were hungry and that corn meant for the horses was to be distributed to the men instead. All in all, a very interesting day. Here is a picture of the Archives, complete with my finger at the bottom, for your viewing pleasure:

**I still hate this word. Some things will never change.
***The only reason I know this is that my co-worker is the BIGGEST Troy Aikman fan. I mean, the biggest. I mean, one signature away from restraining order BIGGEST fan.
****I will take her kind of "fat" any day.
*****Ok of course I cried. If its a day that ends in -y, you can be sure I cried about something.