I used to live in Charleston, SC.  Right downtown.  Near the Battery.  The address was 17 Meeting Street.  A grand old place… built in the late 1700s.  Much of Charleston is filled with such old and beautiful houses.

And wouldn’t you know…. Four signers of the Declaration of Independence were from South Carolina… most of them Charleston.

One of those guys… was good old Eddie Rutledge.  Edward, really.  But I like to call him Eddie Boy.

And here is the thing.  Edward Rutledge lived right across the street from us.  Well… at ONE time he did.  Back in the day when they did things like break away from England and form new countries…. for new found freedoms.  And own slaves.  Uhhhnnnnn.  Anyway….

Yeppers. Ed was at 16 Meeting Street.  In fact, I am pretty sure his ghost is still there.  But that is for another time.

People were cut of a different cloth back then, for the most part.  He was born in Charleston in 1749.  Most notably, he was a Delegate to the Continental Congress from South Carolina, 1774-76, 1779.  But he did a lot of other things too.  Like…. he made great Strawberry Pancakes… and could balance a spoon on his nose.

Eddie…. became a snappy Lawyer.  He had studied at Oxford.  (Not Ohio… but THE Oxford).

But he kept on, and on.  He and his brother John were both engaged in the law, and both attended the congress. They supported each other unabashedly…..  both on the floor and in committee.   Like the Peas in a Pod… or Magnolias on the Bush.

Edward attended Congress at the remarkable age of 27, and was no doubt pretty excited to find himself in the company of the most eminent men of the colonies.  The Big Time, if you will.  His career was filled with a lot of things… including military service… AND…. he even ended up as Governor of SC.

Sounds like a bit of a go-getter.

Mr. Rutledge joined 55 other men…and they  took out their little Bic Pens…. and signed that Declaration of Independence, back on July 4th.

Not true… really.  On July 4, Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence.  Those guys didn’t actually sign the thing until about a month later.  With Quills…not Bics.

So there you have it.    We are afforded great freedoms here in this country.  Hopefully, we all appreciate this luxury given to us… not so very long ago.   Thanks to the people like Eddie Boy and the Pen Men.  And their wives, and families, who enabled them to be who they were.

And now.  We are who we are, in the land of the free.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
— Fred Rogers

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
— Nelson Mandela

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
— Albert Einstein

I love music.  Songs…. songs… songs.
But.
You know.. some songs just don’t make sense to me.

“If I could put time in a bottle….”

I would put a lot of things in bottles.    Like rockets.  But not time.  Time is here to be all spent up.  Wrung out like a sponge.  Soak up every drop…. and wring it out and soak it through… all over again.

Or…

“You’ve got to be cruel to be kind….”

Bunk.  Bunk. Total bunk.  Who writes these songs?
You DO NOT have to be cruel to be kind.  Don’t let anyone fool you about that one.  No Sirrrreeeeee.   The kindest people I know…..  do not have a cruel bone in their bodies.  Heck. They even dream about nice things… like fluffy clouds…. and cars filled with a herd of colorful lambs…
It takes a big heart to be kind.

These are both big on my to-do lists.  Especially for my upcoming Fourth of July Resolution List…. …. if I had such a thing. Back to the To-Do’s.
1.  Living each moment of time.  Fully.
2.  Being kind in each one of those moments.  No matter.

Every time we fill ourselves with the spirit of loving kindness….. a little ugliness …. a little bit of the despicable is removed from the world.

And along with that… if we live in the spirit of love…. our lives become fuller…  and our souls fill up with the better of it all.

Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
—  Swami Sivananda

Tonight, I was reminded of being a little girl.

I like those times… when something, or someone, spawns a memory.  Especially a fond memory.

In this case, the recollection I had was of my Aunt Mary, and my Cousin Timmy, and being up at Indian Lake.  You see, tonight we had dinner with some friends who live at Lake Lakengren.  After a marvelous meal, we took a boat ride out on the lake.  We had a pretty fabulous time.

But it was that Pontoon Boat ride, along those shores of the lake, that reminded me of that cherished childhood memory.  So long ago.  So very far gone from the physicality of it.

My Aunt Mary died when I was about 9 or 10.  Her son, Tim, was a year younger than I.  That part was profoundly sad.

But prior to her death, there were a lot of good early memories… of playing at the lake house, and on those rickety old roads of Russell’s Point, Ohio.   Great visions of being out on the lake and one of my uncles, or cousins, letting me steer the boat.  Ah, the need for speed…. at such a young age.

The sound of the water lapping on the docks… or the quiet of those same waves, finding their way to the boat… when the motor was cut off, and we would just drift along in the lake.

The sights, and the sounds, and the smells… all came rushing back to me…. as I sat there tonight… in my 51-year-old-body….. with my mind dancing back to 45 years ago.  Back….. back…. to when I didn’t know what was in hotdogs… and I loved it that way, because they tasted SO good when we got back to the lake house.  Those roasted hotdogs, with a fistful of Lay’s Potato Chips.

And the feeling in my heart right now, which is very dual in its awareness… in its emotions.  Feeling both love, and loss, at the same time…. for THAT time… so very long ago.

It is a popular belief right now… that “living in the moment” and “mindfulness in the moment” is important.  And I agree.  But there are also frequent references to “living in the present, because the past is gone, and the future is not ours.”…. and such.

But I wonder.  I know for me, the past is still very much a part of my life.  It is where all the lessons I have learned were born.  And and all the experiences…. which have led to this one… where made in the past.  And the memories of that history are very real… not gone forever.  As for the future… there are certainly no guarantees.  But that is where our hopes, and our dreams are residing… in waiting.

Today truly is all we have… this very moment.  But contained in that moment is the continuum of the infinity of time.