George Washington's Birthday, February 22, 1732

When I was a young boy my summer weekends were spent in a cottage on the edge of Patterson Creek in the village of Burlington, West Virginia. Many of my blog posts over the past decade celebrate the place as a paradise for a kid. Countless times I sat on that rocky bank looking downstream to a bend where the burbling creek ended in the silence of deeper water. I couldn't see what was beyond that bend but I could sometimes hear the noise of swimmers and even the conversation of fishermen when the wind was right. My father told me the story of a 16 year-old boy and his 23 year-old cousin who accompanied a surveyor on a journey along the creek.  More than once I wondered what it would be like to see them round that bend and discuss their experience with me. Many years later I was fortunate to find that the younger cousin kept a rather detailed journal of that summer trip. Now as I approach my 75th year I am only too eager to return to that rocky beach and through some window in time watch George Washington, journal in hand, round that bend once more, and share with me the happening of March 26-27, 1748.

  

George Washington                                      Gilbert Stuart, 1796

We had a federal holiday on Monday of this week commemorating Washington's birthday, but it was simply another one of those government manipulations to provide us with three-day weekends. Washington was actually born on February 22 Perhaps a few days don't matter much in a nation that has lost its appreciation for history and reality over the past decades. Still, there are some personalities and events worthy of authentic remembrance. George Washington, fondly recalled as the Father of His Country, is one of them. Here is what Scott Johnson (Powerline) has to say about the subject:

Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington's greatness was the rarest and most needed. At this remove in time it is also the hardest to comprehend.

Today as we contend with the contemporary equivalent of "the Babylonish empire," let us send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days for this indispensable man.

Johnson originally posted his comment in 2006. Read the rest his brief and notable remarks here.

Learn more about the young adventurer who became the father of his country at the following sources:

George Washington Birthplace National Monument

Fort Necessity National Battlefield

Valley Forge National Historical Park

Independence National Historical Park

George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, Museum, and Gardens

Washington Monument

George Washington Masonic Memorial






Sources
Illustrations:
Stuart portrait, a copy known as the Lansdowne Portrait, hangs in the White House. The original is located in the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Postcards are from the author's archive.