Did Ben Franklin Invent the Kazoo?
No, but he would have loved the Ocean Park Kazoo Band on July 4th
To hear the 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
Yesterday’s celebration of Independence Day here in Ocean Park, Maine, was bittersweet for me.
I marched in the Kazoo Band, which always generates a delighted reaction from the parade crowd. It’s silly but also stirring to hum “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and other patriotic songs into a yellow kazoo. Especially while marching in (sort of) formation down the streets of a seaside village in Maine on the Fourth of July.
But when our leader Michelle called out “Anchors Away” as we rounded the corner from Temple Avenue to West Grand, I was instantly in the presence of my Dad, who served in the Navy and passed away in May of last year at the age of 96. For a few bars, I was too choked up to hum.
I love those moments when something makes me sure I truly am in his presence—and always will be.
After our family party at the next cottage, hosted by my niece Fran and her wife Elle, I finished watching “Franklin,” the excellent Apple TV+ series starring Michael Douglas.
After tough negotiations Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams share a celebratory dinner in Paris. Adams, a teetotaler who makes an exception for the occasion, offers this toast:
To virtue, honesty, education of the people, and the rule of law. We can have no country without them—nor be worthy of one.
“Amen,” Franklin says.
Watching the scene on my Vision Pro, it seemed as if the three Founders were looking far into the future of the nation they had just helped bring into sovereign, independent existence.
The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, when Ben Franklin was 70 years old.
Nearly 250 years later, Americans are grappling with whether we are still worthy of the nation bequeathed to us by our ancestors.
