Found this just now. It's a little different from the other 4th of July entry.
Draft of News Article, Declaration of Independence
(Dad said it’s important to establish my byline right away, so, first of all, this is Absalom Van Wyck, summing up the tidings from the 2nd Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Am currently a roving reporter for The NY Knickerbocker News after several abortive tries in various departments. Now, since Dad scrubbed the Ethics Department from the News yesterday, whilst everybody was downtown at the Festival of Colonial Clams, yet another job possibility has closed for yrs truly.
Today in Philadelphia— I’m not quite sure of the date, having spent a rather debauched, excessively long weekend at the Fraunces Tavern in NYC and then traveling by tinker’s cart to this unfamiliar city— as I was saying, today in Philadelphia, oppressive heat is accompanied by theatrical rumblings from gray, lowering clouds.
Much earlier in the day than I would have liked, I took my seat in the Pennsylvania State House as the meeting of the delegates began.
First, Congressional President John Hancock rapped his gavel. Because I was experiencing an especially turbulent hangover, I scrambled under my seat, thinking it was enemy gunfire.)
Hancock: The meeting will come to order. Gentlemen, we’re assembled today to unanimously adopt the Declaration of Independence, so painstakingly drafted by committee here.
Thomas Jefferson: (Irritably) Committee?
Hancock: (Ignoring him) Remember, we must be in agreement on everything. As Ben Franklin likes to say, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Now, I see by my Apple Watch Series 2 that it is July 3rd, 1776.
Jefferson: I’m looking at the calendar and I see that it is, in fact, July 4th.
John Adams: I have a Samsung Gear S3 Frontier. I say it could be the 2nd, but I can’t read this thing without my spectacles.
Richard Henry Lee: A Misfit Phase here. I think it’s still June, no?
Benjamin Franklin: I’ve got a Fossil Q Founder.
Adams: (Muttering) You would.
Franklin: I’m pretty sure it’s 1776, tho’ I can’t read the month.
Lewis Morris: I still write 1775 on my checks.
Hancock: The date doesn’t really matter. Nobody will remember it. Let’s deal with any old business before we move on to the Declaration.
Jefferson: (Reading from the minutes) Last time we addressed a disagreement between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton claimed a lizard can grow back its tail if he loses it. Burr argued that the tail can grow back into a lizard should the appendage be separated from the creature.
Lee: What in the name of Salome’s Seven Veils is a lizard?
Adams: Some form of Caribbean cootie, much like Hamilton himself. I have seen a lizard, but I’m not saying it traveled to the colonies from the island of Nevis in Alexander Hamilton’s luggage.
Morris: I’d like to move on to some other old business, if I may, Mr. President. (To Franklin) How is the GoFundMe page coming along for your gout, B.F.?
Franklin: So far I have received four shillings, twelve pence, and a dozen eggs. I concocted a delightful shampoo from the eggs and washed my hair until it gleamed. My children, who are pretty hungry and would have enjoyed eating the eggs, can set up their own GoFundMe pages if they want food. As you can see by the absence of my shoe, the gout still bothers me.
Morris: (Picking up a newspaper) Tut tut! I see a journalist has complained that he was body-slammed by a politician.
(As a journalist, I decided to offer a remark.)
Van Wyck: I am a reporter for The New York Knickerbocker News, and I have been body-slammed by virtually every politician I have interviewed, from John Adams to James Madison. If you want to call General Washington a politician, well, I have been body-slammed by him, too, though not during an interview. In the General's case, I was snooping about his pantry, looking for his wife's famous currant jelly to spread on her equally famous shortbread. That it was 2:00 a.m. and I had not been invited is no matter. A free and independent Son of Liberty, I regard the whole world as my home.
Hancock: Mr. Van Wyck, I think it is? I have heard of you by reputation. I must tell you that you have no standing in this body to offer comments.
(John Adams took the opportunity to smirk.)
Hancock: By the way, Pennsylvania is missing from the assembly today because John Dickinson claims to be sick. He says he has a catarrh, his bowels are loose, and his urine smells like beef and barley soup. Since he is a vegan, I for one cannot understand the soup symptom.
(Despite Hancock’s admonishment, I felt the need to speak again.)
Van Wyck: Bah! After watching a Punch and Judy show sponsored by General Washington at the Morris Mansion, I fell ill with head congestion and sneezing. Unfortunately, I am allergic to puppets. I self-medicated with leeches, which did no good, but Dad said that's because the correct application is to affix them to one's skin, not to swallow a dozen of them whole.
Hancock: You have been advised, Mr. Van Wyck. No one wants to hear about your leeches.
Jefferson: Mr. President, I believe Mr. Dickinson has stayed away intentionally so that we might have a unanimous agreement on my Declaration.
Hancock: Teamwork, Mr. Jefferson, teamwork. I believe five others have contributed to the Declaration.
(Jefferson looked sourly at Adams.)
Morris: Mr. President, tho’ NY is in attendance, and we fervently agree with all precepts contained within the document in question, we have not received instructions from the NY Provincial Congress about how to vote; therefore, we must abstain.
(Belatedly I remembered that it was I who was to deliver the instructions, but I had been pre-occupied at my tailor’s and never fetched them.
It was a fortunate errand, however, as I now sported an eye-catching Royal Blue wool coat, trimmed at collar and cuff with chihuahua fur and piped with burgundy sateen. The waistcoat was Turkey Red and fashioned from moleskin. My wool leggings were a mix of thin Royal Blue and burgundy stripes. My wool stockings were Royal Blue, and my shoes, cobbled in France, exhibited bold brass buckles shaped like crowns. My snowy white linen and cravat completed the outfit.
Wait— did I mention my buttons? They were whalebone covered with Royal Blue wool and, like my buckles, resembled little crowns.
You can imagine my surprise when John Adams approached me, tore off my buttons, and tossed them out the window. I don’t think he noticed the buckles, else he might have done the same to them.
Actually, the wool and chihuahua clothing is really stifling on such a hot, humid day, whether it be June or July of any year. Oh! How I yearn for a junket to Canada, where the weather is bearable, but Dad said I must forge ahead with my colonial reportage.
I saw that Lee was getting restless.)
Lee: Mr. President, the Congress may recall that earlier this year— I’m not sure of the date— I made a motion to declare independence from Britain. I believe we should address that as new business.
Hancock: Now, now, Mr. Lee, before we get to that, your good wife has sent up twenty-four jars of homemade Stratford Hall Honey and wishes payment of a shilling per jar by the end of June, July, or August, whichever month comes first.
Adams: I’d like five jars if you’ll take an old hat of mine as payment.
Lee: Sold!
Jefferson: Ten jars for two hats?
Lee: I suppose I could work that out, though I have need of only so many hats. I already have one, which seems enough to me.
Morris: I’ll take the rest for a paring knife with a tortoise shell handle.
Lee: We were hoping for a little cash from somebody here.
Franklin: Old Laurens Van Wyck, the publisher, has a few shekels. Talk to his son, that dandified dolt over there.
(For some reason, everybody looked in my direction. I glanced behind me to see if anyone was standing there, but apparently I was seated directly against a wall.)
Hancock: Time to move on to new business, gentlemen. I have here a report from a colleague in NY. (Reads from letter) “Sources near the general tell me that General Washington has grown more and more unhappy with his wooden teeth and has said to his inner circle, ‘You guys work for me. Fix this.’ One aide suggested whale bone. Another favored rhinoceros tusk. ‘Why rhinoceros?’ the general is said to have raged. ‘Why not elephant or woolly mammoth?’ No one on his staff dared to venture that woolly mammoths are extinct. Only an extra bowl of ice cream after dinner could allay Washington’s wrath.”
And we thought King George III was a problem.
Morris: Indeed, Mr. President. And I have another issue to raise as new business. My colleague, Mr. Livingston, has just informed me that the reporter Van Wyck (All looked in my direction yet again) was discovered in flagrante delicto with Sam Adams’s wife, Elizabeth, not only by Mr. Adams, but also by his friend, Francis Wells, whilst the trysting pair thought the two men were busy setting nearby Loyalist houses on fire. Adams and Wells burst into the bedchamber, pistols drawn, occasioning Van Wyck to leap out of the window, screaming like a pterodactyl.
(All delegates gasped and glared at me.)
Hancock: This is certainly disturbing news, Mr. Morris. We shall have to adjourn for lunch, however, and discuss it this afternoon.
(I returned later in the day as Congress was voting on some issue or other. Apparently they had already dealt with the matter of Mrs. Adams’s infidelity. As I listened to the great men confer, I was enjoying an order of beef and barley soup from a nearby tavern when I remembered John Dickinson’s urinary affliction and fed the remainder to a passing cat. I did not wish to chance projectile regurgitation amidst such a distinguished assembly.
I was hot and tired, so dozed off intermittently for the rest of the afternoon, tho’ I seem to recall that Congress declared independence from someone or something, but I didn’t catch who or what it was. All I remember is that Jefferson said it was a Thursday, yet Adams insisted it had to be any other day of the week but that. Must write this article up by tomorrow for Dad’s approval. Cannot wait to get back to NY.)
Draft of News Article, Declaration of Independence
(Dad said it’s important to establish my byline right away, so, first of all, this is Absalom Van Wyck, summing up the tidings from the 2nd Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Am currently a roving reporter for The NY Knickerbocker News after several abortive tries in various departments. Now, since Dad scrubbed the Ethics Department from the News yesterday, whilst everybody was downtown at the Festival of Colonial Clams, yet another job possibility has closed for yrs truly.
Today in Philadelphia— I’m not quite sure of the date, having spent a rather debauched, excessively long weekend at the Fraunces Tavern in NYC and then traveling by tinker’s cart to this unfamiliar city— as I was saying, today in Philadelphia, oppressive heat is accompanied by theatrical rumblings from gray, lowering clouds.
Much earlier in the day than I would have liked, I took my seat in the Pennsylvania State House as the meeting of the delegates began.
First, Congressional President John Hancock rapped his gavel. Because I was experiencing an especially turbulent hangover, I scrambled under my seat, thinking it was enemy gunfire.)
Hancock: The meeting will come to order. Gentlemen, we’re assembled today to unanimously adopt the Declaration of Independence, so painstakingly drafted by committee here.
Thomas Jefferson: (Irritably) Committee?
Hancock: (Ignoring him) Remember, we must be in agreement on everything. As Ben Franklin likes to say, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Now, I see by my Apple Watch Series 2 that it is July 3rd, 1776.
Jefferson: I’m looking at the calendar and I see that it is, in fact, July 4th.
John Adams: I have a Samsung Gear S3 Frontier. I say it could be the 2nd, but I can’t read this thing without my spectacles.
Richard Henry Lee: A Misfit Phase here. I think it’s still June, no?
Benjamin Franklin: I’ve got a Fossil Q Founder.
Adams: (Muttering) You would.
Franklin: I’m pretty sure it’s 1776, tho’ I can’t read the month.
Lewis Morris: I still write 1775 on my checks.
Hancock: The date doesn’t really matter. Nobody will remember it. Let’s deal with any old business before we move on to the Declaration.
Jefferson: (Reading from the minutes) Last time we addressed a disagreement between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton claimed a lizard can grow back its tail if he loses it. Burr argued that the tail can grow back into a lizard should the appendage be separated from the creature.
Lee: What in the name of Salome’s Seven Veils is a lizard?
Adams: Some form of Caribbean cootie, much like Hamilton himself. I have seen a lizard, but I’m not saying it traveled to the colonies from the island of Nevis in Alexander Hamilton’s luggage.
Morris: I’d like to move on to some other old business, if I may, Mr. President. (To Franklin) How is the GoFundMe page coming along for your gout, B.F.?
Franklin: So far I have received four shillings, twelve pence, and a dozen eggs. I concocted a delightful shampoo from the eggs and washed my hair until it gleamed. My children, who are pretty hungry and would have enjoyed eating the eggs, can set up their own GoFundMe pages if they want food. As you can see by the absence of my shoe, the gout still bothers me.
Morris: (Picking up a newspaper) Tut tut! I see a journalist has complained that he was body-slammed by a politician.
(As a journalist, I decided to offer a remark.)
Van Wyck: I am a reporter for The New York Knickerbocker News, and I have been body-slammed by virtually every politician I have interviewed, from John Adams to James Madison. If you want to call General Washington a politician, well, I have been body-slammed by him, too, though not during an interview. In the General's case, I was snooping about his pantry, looking for his wife's famous currant jelly to spread on her equally famous shortbread. That it was 2:00 a.m. and I had not been invited is no matter. A free and independent Son of Liberty, I regard the whole world as my home.
Hancock: Mr. Van Wyck, I think it is? I have heard of you by reputation. I must tell you that you have no standing in this body to offer comments.
(John Adams took the opportunity to smirk.)
Hancock: By the way, Pennsylvania is missing from the assembly today because John Dickinson claims to be sick. He says he has a catarrh, his bowels are loose, and his urine smells like beef and barley soup. Since he is a vegan, I for one cannot understand the soup symptom.
(Despite Hancock’s admonishment, I felt the need to speak again.)
Van Wyck: Bah! After watching a Punch and Judy show sponsored by General Washington at the Morris Mansion, I fell ill with head congestion and sneezing. Unfortunately, I am allergic to puppets. I self-medicated with leeches, which did no good, but Dad said that's because the correct application is to affix them to one's skin, not to swallow a dozen of them whole.
Hancock: You have been advised, Mr. Van Wyck. No one wants to hear about your leeches.
Jefferson: Mr. President, I believe Mr. Dickinson has stayed away intentionally so that we might have a unanimous agreement on my Declaration.
Hancock: Teamwork, Mr. Jefferson, teamwork. I believe five others have contributed to the Declaration.
(Jefferson looked sourly at Adams.)
Morris: Mr. President, tho’ NY is in attendance, and we fervently agree with all precepts contained within the document in question, we have not received instructions from the NY Provincial Congress about how to vote; therefore, we must abstain.
(Belatedly I remembered that it was I who was to deliver the instructions, but I had been pre-occupied at my tailor’s and never fetched them.
It was a fortunate errand, however, as I now sported an eye-catching Royal Blue wool coat, trimmed at collar and cuff with chihuahua fur and piped with burgundy sateen. The waistcoat was Turkey Red and fashioned from moleskin. My wool leggings were a mix of thin Royal Blue and burgundy stripes. My wool stockings were Royal Blue, and my shoes, cobbled in France, exhibited bold brass buckles shaped like crowns. My snowy white linen and cravat completed the outfit.
Wait— did I mention my buttons? They were whalebone covered with Royal Blue wool and, like my buckles, resembled little crowns.
You can imagine my surprise when John Adams approached me, tore off my buttons, and tossed them out the window. I don’t think he noticed the buckles, else he might have done the same to them.
Actually, the wool and chihuahua clothing is really stifling on such a hot, humid day, whether it be June or July of any year. Oh! How I yearn for a junket to Canada, where the weather is bearable, but Dad said I must forge ahead with my colonial reportage.
I saw that Lee was getting restless.)
Lee: Mr. President, the Congress may recall that earlier this year— I’m not sure of the date— I made a motion to declare independence from Britain. I believe we should address that as new business.
Hancock: Now, now, Mr. Lee, before we get to that, your good wife has sent up twenty-four jars of homemade Stratford Hall Honey and wishes payment of a shilling per jar by the end of June, July, or August, whichever month comes first.
Adams: I’d like five jars if you’ll take an old hat of mine as payment.
Lee: Sold!
Jefferson: Ten jars for two hats?
Lee: I suppose I could work that out, though I have need of only so many hats. I already have one, which seems enough to me.
Morris: I’ll take the rest for a paring knife with a tortoise shell handle.
Lee: We were hoping for a little cash from somebody here.
Franklin: Old Laurens Van Wyck, the publisher, has a few shekels. Talk to his son, that dandified dolt over there.
(For some reason, everybody looked in my direction. I glanced behind me to see if anyone was standing there, but apparently I was seated directly against a wall.)
Hancock: Time to move on to new business, gentlemen. I have here a report from a colleague in NY. (Reads from letter) “Sources near the general tell me that General Washington has grown more and more unhappy with his wooden teeth and has said to his inner circle, ‘You guys work for me. Fix this.’ One aide suggested whale bone. Another favored rhinoceros tusk. ‘Why rhinoceros?’ the general is said to have raged. ‘Why not elephant or woolly mammoth?’ No one on his staff dared to venture that woolly mammoths are extinct. Only an extra bowl of ice cream after dinner could allay Washington’s wrath.”
And we thought King George III was a problem.
Morris: Indeed, Mr. President. And I have another issue to raise as new business. My colleague, Mr. Livingston, has just informed me that the reporter Van Wyck (All looked in my direction yet again) was discovered in flagrante delicto with Sam Adams’s wife, Elizabeth, not only by Mr. Adams, but also by his friend, Francis Wells, whilst the trysting pair thought the two men were busy setting nearby Loyalist houses on fire. Adams and Wells burst into the bedchamber, pistols drawn, occasioning Van Wyck to leap out of the window, screaming like a pterodactyl.
(All delegates gasped and glared at me.)
Hancock: This is certainly disturbing news, Mr. Morris. We shall have to adjourn for lunch, however, and discuss it this afternoon.
(I returned later in the day as Congress was voting on some issue or other. Apparently they had already dealt with the matter of Mrs. Adams’s infidelity. As I listened to the great men confer, I was enjoying an order of beef and barley soup from a nearby tavern when I remembered John Dickinson’s urinary affliction and fed the remainder to a passing cat. I did not wish to chance projectile regurgitation amidst such a distinguished assembly.
I was hot and tired, so dozed off intermittently for the rest of the afternoon, tho’ I seem to recall that Congress declared independence from someone or something, but I didn’t catch who or what it was. All I remember is that Jefferson said it was a Thursday, yet Adams insisted it had to be any other day of the week but that. Must write this article up by tomorrow for Dad’s approval. Cannot wait to get back to NY.)