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