Make like an Australian

"Leave everyone wondering which is the more interesting piece of work...

you or your hat." 

Unknown

By mid morning we had time travelled to the Colonial era, back when an apple was just a piece of fruit.  Driving a minivan rather than a DeLorean, we arrived in Williamsburg,  shuffled through the obligatory visitor centre, bought our guest passes and started our historical journey into 18th Century mainstreet.

I was intrigued to learn about a town with almost 400 years of history.  Established in 1632, Williamsburg succeeded Jamestown in 1699 to become the capital of Virginia. The settlement was a hub of colonial existence until the American Revolutionary War in 1780 when the capital was moved to Richmond.  An agricultural land that evolved with cotton, tobacco and sheep.  The Colonial section of Williamsburg became neglected as the modern town grew up around it.  The restoration, re-creation and preservation of Colonial Williamsburg came in the 1930's with Reverend Goodwin who had financial backing from David and Abbey Rockafeller.

“The nation needs to return to the colonial way of life, when a wife was judged by the amount of wood she could split.”

 W. C. Fields

I had no intention of wielding an axe, so we decided to split from the welcome of the wood shed and head over to the Governer's Palace.  We were greeted by a tour guide authentically dressed in apron and cap. She immediately captivated our imaginations when she brought us inside quickly confiding in us that it was a profound day in June, 1775.  Lord Dunmore had disappeared with his family overnight, they had fled to the refuge of a British ship.  Totally in character and period, our tour guide conveyed her worries of Revolution and War.  She made the visit through the house so realistic by conveying the shock the townsfolk felt at being left without a Governor, without British Rule.  The Dunmores returned to Scotland where Lord Dunmore would gather troops to fight the rebellious colonists. 

“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: 

First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can”

 Samuel Adams

Fantastic displays of muskets adorned the entrance hall and we moved through the house to the grandeur of the ballroom.  Hung on the wall were portraits of King George the 3rd and Queen Charlotte.  Interesting to think that these paintings would be the only images the colonists would see of their monarchs.  Hard for my 21st century, media image soaked brain to comprehend.  We had been enthralled by the way our docent had brought history alive, hungering for more we moved onto the antique kitchens.

“I’ll bet what motivated the British to colonize so much of the world
is that they were just looking for a decent meal.”
Martha Harrison

Unsurprisingly, Greg had lots of food questions and once his appetite was replete we moved back through the beautiful gardens and hedged maze.

“The winner of the hoop race will be the first to realize her dream, 

not society's dream, her own personal dream.”

 Barbara Bush

The street theatre continued as we walked down the wide grassy avenue and stopped off for lemonade.  After a quick game of hoop trundling, we visited the blacksmith and gunsmith and then it was on to Jasmin's favorite, the shoemaker.

 "The right shoe can make everything different."

Jimmy Choo

The motto in Williamsburg is "The future may learn from the past".  What better way for the kids to learn and this was history with a heartbeat.  The old court house was conducting a trial and there was a tour of the armory. The carriage rides up and down the Duke of Gloucester Street just added the final whiff of authenticity to it all.  The General Stores were great for a browse, we even found some 'olde worlde ginger ale'.  However, the best was still to come in the form of street theatre performances.

"Let the crime fit the punishment" 

Proverb

I'm not sure what punishment should be doled out for whining?  I had imagined colonial times to be somewhat more peaceful, lacking electricity and complicated machinery.  However, the cries from down the street and the huge crowd gathering told us something more was afoot.    

 “Though those that are betray'd Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor Stands in worse case of woe”

 William Shakespeare

What started as a roll call for Revolutionary soldiers became an open air argument on the street corner between colonial farmer and his bonnet wearing wife.  They needed the money, but she worried for his safety.  A few more players joined the throng and with cries of "the English are coming" we were soon herded down the street by Benedict Arnold himself.

"The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer”

 Theodore Roosevelt

 Greg started to push me forward as a Loyalist traitor so I quickly made like an Australian and tried to wear my best "I don't know what he's going on about" face.  The crowd was becoming more feisty by the moment and I thought Benedict might blow a horse gasket, such was his anger.  When the horses wheeled off we headed back over to the coffee house for what would be the last performance of the day.  The kids had thoroughly gotten into the spirit of things and raced ahead to get a good seat.

"When we are in health, all sounds fife and drum for us; 

we hear the notes of music in the air, 

or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn" 

Henry David Thoreau

I thought each and every actor excellent.  These folks must do this day in and day out yet the performance seemed fresh and energetic. The theatre culminated in the return of the Revolutionary Soldiers serenaded by the Fife and Drum band.  It's a great honor for the  kids of Williamsburg to play in the band and I was impressed by their pride and dignity in delivering their performance.  We marched alongside these boys and girls as the music welled around the crowded street.  It was easy to be drawn back 200 years and gain a sense of a new born America.

"Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country"

Marquis De Lafayette

 "A battery of field artillery is worth a thousand muskets."

William Tecumseh Sherman

The band marched to the field behind the Courthouse and George Washington rode up on his steed to command the musket and cannon fire.  The finale performance whipped up a mass of American patriotic triumph within me and my eyes shone with elation, quite a mean feat considering I had spent the afternoon "making like an Australian".  Amongst the acrid smell of gunpowder smoke the day most definately finished with a bang.

 "These are everlasting gobstoppers. They're for children who are given very little allowance money. You can suck on it all year, and it'll never get any smaller." 

Willy Wonka

By the time we made it to the modern end of town the ice-cream store had closed so we had to make do with a candy store for our evening sugar fix.  Time to catch the bus back to the parking lot and head to the hotel.  Tomorrow would be a whole new chapter of the history book.

"The inconueniencies that haue happened to some persons vvhich haue transported themselues from England to Virginia, vvithout prouisions necessary to sustaine themselues, hath greatly hindred the progresse of that noble plantation" Virginia Company of London 1622

Jamestown was first settled in 1607 by the London Virginia Company under the guise of spreading Christianity to the Indians.  In reality, the endeavor was for colonial expansion and trade.  In the early years, 9 out of 10 settlers died.  It amazed me that the colony survived the odds thrown against it since the colonists were ill equipped and poorly organized with weak leadership.  They faced hardships such as poor water supply, mosquitos, malaria, disease, indian attack, crop failure, drought, starvation, destruction from fire and lack of funding from the Virginia Company.    

 "It is one of the blessings of old friends 

that you can afford to be stupid with them."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We followed the school group up to the fort from the glassblowing display and were soon busy exploring life as it would have been in the 1600's.  Behind the stockade things were fairly rudimentary and I thought the indigenous huts far superior in comfort.

“Many who build castles in the air cannot build a hut on earth”

 German Proverb 

It is sublimely English that many of the first colonists were wealthy Merchant Gentlemen who in their arrogance would not contribute to the common labors of the colony.  They were there to plunder the wealth of the New World.  Their aristocratic backgrounds did not equip them to grow their own food and carve out a colony.  Between 1709 and 1710 around 80% of the settlers died.   

“American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came stark and strong and full of life out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier.”

 Frederick Jackson Turner

We wandered down the hill to the dock and I was shocked at the small size of the 'Susan Constant' replica vessel.  At 155ft she was actually larger than the other 2 ships,  'Godspeed' and 'Discovery'.  This fleet of 3 boats carried 105 men and boys across the Atlantic, it was an unusually long crossing and took 144 days for them to reach their first landfall at Cape Henry.  As we wound up the morning in Jamestown, I got to thinking about how well I would have coped with this particular colonial experience.    4.5 months was a very long time to be at sea in cramped conditions.  Landfall wouldn't have provided much relief in terms of food supplies.  Even with my 21st century education and knowledge, I'm not sure I would last a week if you put me in the woods with no internet connection and a goal to be subsistent.  All things considered it was best we moved forward to a more developed time so we made our way to Monticello.

Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country

Marquis De Lafayette

Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers, was the author of the Declaration of Independence and 3rd President of the United States.  He spoke 5 languages and was a scientist, inventor, architect, musician and interested in religion and philosophy.  He designed and built Monticello on land he inherited.  He studied law and had a love for learning and books.  He sold his large collection to the Library of Congress after the English burned it when they destroyed Washington DC.  He was married once, to Martha, for 11 years and after her death never remarried.  The house was a reflection of who he was with maps and books scattered throughout.  There were lots of crazy inventions like his clock and his pulley system doors.  I really liked his dumb waiter for wine which ran from the cellar to the dining room.  The grounds were immaculate and it was divine to a take moment in the shade of a tree, take in the view and think.

 When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; 

when the government fears the people, there is liberty.  

Thomas Jefferson

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Jefferson was that he supposedly had a second family with a slave named Sally Hemmings.  DNA evidence has show there is a definite link between the two families.  During his Presidency he bought the Louisianna Territory and in 1807 he signed into law a bill which banned the importation of slaves to the US.  I was at information overload, luckily it was almost closing time and we still had a long journey back to the vacation house.  However, we did take one last moment to view the favorite oak tree under which Thomas and his friend Dabney used to study.  They loved the spot so much that they both vowed to be buried there.  At the age of 83, on June 4th 1826 Jefferson died, exactly 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

"I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do,

and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God, -- my daughter to my country." Thomas Jefferson on his death bed.

“Luck is like having a rice dumpling fly into your mouth”

 Japanese Proverb

The day had been long and as we wound through picture perfect pastures, dotted with thoroughbred horses, edged with white wooden fences and I had lots to mull over.  From sea to shining sea, America has a lot of history.  As the sun began to cast its shadows we started to get desperate for a place to eat.  There seemed to be very little in the way of eateries along the scenic highway.  Suddenly at a four way stop we spotted a Hibachi restaurant and screeched to a halt a the front door.  Our only complaint was there was no ice-cream for dessert.  Not to worry I told the kids we had some at home (freeze dried space ice-cream).

"Ice cream is happiness condensed." 

Jessi Lane Adams.