"This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation," Franklin wrote...and "were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against popery." When the Queen Mary I was engaged in her bloody crusade to reestablish the Roman Catholic Church, (Grandfather) Thomas Franklin kept the banned English Bible tied to the underside of a stool.....the Puritan migration established the foundation for some characteristics of Benjamin Franklin, and of America itself.

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Well, as promised I have begun my new book on Benjamin Franklin

Chapter One
Benjamin Franklin
And The Invention
Of America

Over time Americans find that they learn bits and pieces about the man on the $100.00 bill....we all fondly know as Benjamin Franklin. In chapter one we are reminded he arrived in Philadelphia, PA as a 17 year old bedraggled runaway. He started out his life as a runaway because he was tired of the apprentice work he was bound to complete with his older brother.... after B. Franklin worked until he felt he had learned more about printing than his oldest brother could teach him he was compelled to leave...as of the time period he went to his father to ask his permission to end his apprenticeship with his oldest brother. His father refused him.... long story short B. Franklin ran away and most of literature today will begin the start their discussions about B. Franklin as he arrived in Philadelphia exhausted, hungry and as he straggled off the boat and found himself wandering down Market Street purchasing three puffy rolls of bread that were popular to eat in Philadelphia. Ben had never eaten this type of bread before. In the meantime, his future wife Deborah Read was standing in her doorway of her home and she saw Ben walking down the street in a most disheveled appearance.

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Well, we have purchased our books, I began to read and made it to page three. With too many interruptions I put the book down with great disappointment. So I pledge to myself to begin the book this Sunday.

I have a conference to attend this weekend leaving this afternoon and then returning on Sunday mid day so thus should have time at some point this weekend to begin my book over again!

It has great promise. The book does appear to be a quick and easy read..... Now it is up to me to make it happen.

Link: http://elise.com/books/el/archives/benjamin_franklin_-_walter_isaacson.php

I am very interested in Benjamin Franklin. Follow this link and find his quick biography to read: http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/info/index.htm

Today, my husband and I went to Barnes and Noble http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/storelocator/stores.aspx?x=y& purchased 2 copies of Benjamin Franklin, An American Life author Walter Isaacson, A New York Times Bestseller. "A thoroughly researched crisply written, convincingly argued chronicle" The New York Times Book Review

http://elise.com/books/el/archives/benjamin_franklin_-_walter_isaacson.php

We plan to read and discuss the book over the next few weeks. I plan to share what I read with anyone interested in reading what I post on this blog.

Hopefully, we can rediscover Benjamin Franklin and connect to all that he did for our country.

Written by Brion McClanahan, Ph.D.

Wow... you think you know the founding fathers but then did you know all of this????

Link: http://www.kyrene.k12.az.us/schools/brisas/sunda/poets/field.htm

With Trumpet and Drum
Eugene Field
The Children's Poet

With big tin trumpet and little red drum
Marching like soldiers, the children come!
My! but that music of theirs is fine!
This way and that way, and after a while
They march straight into this heart of mine!
A sturdy old heart, but it has to succumb
To the blare of that trumpet and beat of that drum!

Come on, little people, from cot and from hall-
This heart it hath welcome and room for you all!
It will sing you it's songs and warm you with love,
As your dear little arms with my arms intertwine;
It will rock you away to the dreamland above-
Oh, a jolly old heart is this heart of mine,
And jollier still is it bound to become
When you blow that big trumpet and beat that red drum!

So come; though I see not his dear little face
And hear not his voice in this jubilant place,
I know he were happy to bid me enshrine
His memory deep in my heart with your play-
Ah me! But a love that is sweeter than mine
Holdeth my boy in its keeping to-day!
And my heart it is lonely-so little folk come,
March in and make merry with trumpet and drum!

Link: http://www.kyrene.k12.az.us/schools/brisas/sunda/poets/field.htm

Jest for Christmas by
Eugene Field

Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain’t a girl—ruther be a boy,
Without them sashes, curls, an’ things that’s worn by Fauntleroy!
Love to chawnk green apples an’ go swimmin’ in the lake—
Hate to take the castor-ile they give for bellyache!
‘Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain’t no flies on me,
But jest ‘fore Christmas I’m as good as I kin be!

Got a yeller dog named Sport, sick him on the cat;
First thing she knows she doesn’t know where she is at!
Got a clipper sled, an’ when us kids goes out to slide,
‘Long comes the grocery cart, an’ we all hook a ride!
But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an’ cross,
He reaches at us with his whip, an’ larrups up his hoss,
An’ then I laff an’ holler, “Oh, ye never teched me!”
But jest ‘fore Christmas I’m as good as I kin be!

Gran’ma says she hopes that when I git to be a man,
I’ll be a missionarer like her oldest brother, Dan,
As was et up by the cannibuls that lives in Ceylon’s Isle,
Where every prospeck pleases, an’ only man is vile!
But gran’ma she has never been to see a Wild West show,
Nor read the Life of Daniel Boone, or else I guess she’d know
That Buff’lo Bill an’ cow-boys is good enough for me!
Excep’ jest ‘fore Christmas, when I’m good as I kin be!

And then old Sport he hangs around, so solemn-like an’ still,
His eyes they seem a-sayin’: “What’s the matter, little Bill?”
The old cat sneaks down off her perch an’ wonders what’s become
Of them two enemies of hern that used to make things hum!
But I am so perlite an’ ‘tend so earnestly to biz,
That mother says to father: “How improved our Willie is!”
But father, havin’ been a boy hisself, suspicions me
When, jest ‘fore Christmas, I’m as good as I kin be!

For Christmas, with its lots an’ lots of candies, cakes, an’ toys,
Was made, they say, for proper kids an’ not for naughty boys;
So wash yer face an’ bresh yer hair, an’ mind yer p’s and q’s,
An’ don’t bust out yer pantaloons, and don’t wear out yer shoes;
Say “Yessum” to the ladies, an’ “Yessur” to the men,
An’ when they’s company, don’t pass yer plate for pie again;
But, thinkin’ of the things yer’d like to see upon that tree,
Jest ‘fore Christmas be as good as yer kin be!