{"id":4076,"date":"2015-07-03T23:45:15","date_gmt":"2015-07-04T03:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/?p=4076"},"modified":"2015-07-03T23:45:15","modified_gmt":"2015-07-04T03:45:15","slug":"eddie-and-the-signers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/?p=4076","title":{"rendered":"Eddie and the Signers…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"doiYaY\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I used to live in Charleston, SC.\u00a0 Right downtown.\u00a0 Near the Battery.\u00a0 The address was 17 Meeting Street.\u00a0 A grand old place\u2026 built in the late 1700s.\u00a0 Much of Charleston is filled with such old and beautiful houses.<\/p>\n

And wouldn\u2019t you know\u2026. Four signers of the Declaration of Independence were from South Carolina\u2026 most of them Charleston.<\/p>\n

One of those guys\u2026 was good old Eddie Rutledge.\u00a0 Edward, really.\u00a0 But I like to call him Eddie Boy.<\/p>\n

And here is the thing.\u00a0 Edward Rutledge lived right across the street from us.\u00a0 Well\u2026 at ONE time he did.\u00a0 Back in the day when they did things like break away from England and form new countries…. for new found freedoms.\u00a0 And own slaves.\u00a0 Uhhhnnnnn.\u00a0 Anyway….<\/p>\n

Yeppers. Ed was at 16 Meeting Street.\u00a0 In fact, I am pretty sure his ghost is still there.\u00a0 But that is for another time.<\/p>\n

People were cut of a different cloth back then, for the most part.\u00a0 He was born in Charleston in 1749.\u00a0 Most notably, he was a Delegate to the Continental Congress from South Carolina, 1774-76, 1779.\u00a0 But he did a lot of other things too.\u00a0 Like\u2026. he made great Strawberry Pancakes\u2026 and could balance a spoon on his nose.<\/p>\n

Eddie\u2026. became a snappy Lawyer.\u00a0 He had studied at Oxford.\u00a0 (Not Ohio\u2026 but THE Oxford).<\/p>\n

But he kept on, and on.\u00a0 He and his brother John were both engaged in the law, and both attended the congress. They supported each other unabashedly\u2026..\u00a0 both on the floor and in committee.\u00a0\u00a0 Like the Peas in a Pod\u2026 or Magnolias on the Bush.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 The Big Time, if you will.\u00a0 His career was filled with a lot of things… including military service\u2026 AND…. he even ended up as Governor of SC.<\/p>\n

Sounds like a bit of a go-getter.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rutledge joined 55 other men\u2026and they\u00a0 took out their little Bic Pens\u2026. and signed that Declaration of Independence, back on July 4th.<\/p>\n

Not true\u2026 really.\u00a0 On July 4, Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence.\u00a0 Those guys didn\u2019t actually sign the thing until about a month later.\u00a0 With Quills\u2026not Bics.<\/p>\n

So there you have it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are afforded great freedoms here in this country.\u00a0 Hopefully, we all appreciate this luxury given to us\u2026 not so very long ago.\u00a0\u00a0 Thanks to the people like Eddie Boy and the Pen Men.\u00a0 And their wives, and families, who enabled them to be who they were.<\/p>\n

And now.\u00a0 We are who we are, in the land of the free.<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood,<\/strong><\/em>
\n A beautiful day for a neighbor.<\/strong><\/em>
\n Would you be mine?<\/strong><\/em>
\n Could you be mine?<\/strong><\/em>
\n \u2014 Fred Rogers<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/em>
\n \u2014 Nelson Mandela<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/em>
\n \u2014 Albert Einstein<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to live in Charleston, SC.\u00a0 Right downtown.\u00a0 Near the Battery.\u00a0 The address was 17 Meeting Street.\u00a0 A grand old place\u2026 built in the late 1700s.\u00a0 Much of Charleston is filled with such old and beautiful houses. And wouldn\u2019t you know\u2026. Four signers of the Declaration of Independence were from South Carolina\u2026 most of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nowyouseeit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4076"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4081,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076\/revisions\/4081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}