doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 240 Years of Freedom...a Short Period of Time

To show how short:

When I was very young, maybe 5 years old, my family visited relation in Texas. Some Summer celebration was going on, maybe the 4th of July. Someone of note was being greeted by throngs of people. I was put in line, and when it was my turn to shake his hand, he said "Son, I was about your age when at a celebration similar to this, I shook the hand of one of the last survivors of the Revolutionary War." This gentleman was a survivor of the Civil War. So I am only one handshake away from the Revolutionary War. That does no longer seem like a long period of time.
Pete

That's very cool Pete. I'm not quite there but am two hand shakes away from the Revolutionary War. My father had his grandfather live with him for the last 10 years of his life. He was born in the 1840's and his grandfather had fled America as a United Empire Loyalist (loser!) around 1790 from the Hudson River Valley. Still waiting for the promised reparations for the nascent American government seizing our family lands and mill.

I was at a subsidiary of the Du Pont conglomerate talking about the rise of Du Pont with its black powder industry on a break with a older gentleman who worked there. He said when he was a boy his father took him to a 4th of July parade in Philly where there were veterans of the Civil War and he regrets to this day not going down there talk to them or shake their hands.

He said something about being to shy or to young to really understand the significance of those men so he stayed with his mother while his older brother and his father went down to meet them.

Canvasback, don't hold your breath on that one. The U.S. Embassy in London is on land owned by the Duke of Westminster. The U.S. wanted it as American soil as per nearly every other Embassy in the world. He agreed on the condition that the U.S. would compensate him for land confiscated in the Revolutionary War; that is most the state of Virginia. He's still awaiting a reply and the U.S. Embassy is still on English soil. Lagopus.....

Ah, c'mon! I suspect the whole "lend-lease" thing worked out for you better than the alternative, after the last great nastyness went down.

The 50 US destroyers that went from flying the US flag to flying the Union Jack were a great start.

I don't recall how many of 'em we got back...



Best,
Ted

The Duke woulda been Adolph's butler.

lonesome.....

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And England's dreaming. The Sex Pistols

Lagopus, I really think about it on occasion to remind me of the foolishness of hanging onto perceived injustices from centuries gone by. I'm happy to be Canadian and happy to have the great USA as a neighbour. Best one in the world. Imagining they owe me something is just flat out silly.

Shame the Duck (Duke says Lagopus. Duck says I) didn't own New Jersey. We'd a made that deal.
lonesome.....


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Virginia is for lovers.

Meant tongue in cheek Canvasback but strangely true. If you think about it the U.S. is my neighbour too with just a strip of water between.

Ted, the reason you never got the Destroyers back is because we paid you for them in full. Britain paid back its Lend Lease debts to the U.S. with the last payments in 2007 and post war loans were paid back the following year. Lagopus.....

We've lasted longer then the original democracy in Athens!!