By DAVID IZRAELEVITZ
Los Alamos
Note to Reader: This Open Book column is part of my occasional “Ex Libris” series about books that have made a difference in my life. Hope you enjoy it.
After we became empty-nesters, Terry and I would implore our children to go through their bedrooms and help us get rid of stuff. It took a decade, but now we have finally purged all awards, papier-mache sculptures, even random juggling equipment from our home. Preparing for grandkids, however, exempted children’s books from the trash bin. Terry pardoned them all because they became part of “Future Grandparenting Stuff.” Her forethought has paid off; now our grandchildren enjoy reading well-worn copies of The Cat in the Hat and My Father’s Dragon. Soon Boxcar Children, Charlotte’s Web, Harry Potter, and every volume of Robert Jordan’s multitudinous Wheel of Time series will be enticing them and their parents to come to spend part of summer break with us.
A few additional books have also escaped mortality, though via a more circuitous route. My parents got me to cull my possessions 40 years ago, but they decided that I should take responsibility for all my stuff, and they meant ALL MY STUFF. Being attached to books, I left home with a few of my most precious juvenile books, and they survived, very cleverly I might add, by hiding them among “Future Grandparenting Stuff.”
My copy of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, purchased at a school book fair circa 1973 for the royal ransom of $1.25 (do we still have school book fairs?), is an especially dear possession. Franklin’s determination toward success and self-improvement made an impression as I read about it, even though as a thirteen-year-old, that inspiration lasted only about a week post-reading because self-improvement is actually much easier read than done. Nevertheless, it was special to me, for as Dr. Franklin said “Reading makes a full man”, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1738.
This book began my fascination with early American history, and I have since read mostly historical non-fiction, much of it about those courageous Founding Fathers. Historians assert that Franklin probably did not say “We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately,” but he surely could have. Washington, Adams, Jefferson et al, all knew that previous revolutions against the English had not ended well for its leaders. Just read about Scottish or Irish rebellions or even medieval Welsh rebellions. Alternatively, watch the end of “Braveheart.” Had Washington lost, he likely would have been sent in chains to London to be publicly hanged, drawn, and quartered, as was the punishment for high treason and was still enforced decades after the American Revolution.
As we see those January 6 insurrectionists plead ignorance, insanity, or just guilty as charged, the Founding Fathers’ courage stands in stark contrast. I have yet to hear an Oath Keeper exclaim regret that he has but one life to give for his country, except on Facebook from the comfort of their home. They were wise not to bring those AK-47 that so many of those guys are fond of collecting because they would have been summarily shot down.
In fact, an AK-47 is self-defense against tyrannical government these days as much as a front-loading musket. Ukraine wants missiles from us, not rifles, and the events of the last few weeks reiterate the tragic fact that semi-automatics in the hands of civilians are only good for mowing down parishioners and executing schoolchildren. Though we should do something about these awful weapons as countries around the world have, I am despondent that we won’t. After all, Dr. Franklin said, in Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1754, “Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn.”