Tag Archives: Thomas Jefferson

Part II: History Lesson at Monticello

by Woody

STRAW_CoverWoody’s highly anticipated new book “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” is NOW available! Order your signed copy HERE!

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‘Little Mountain’ and Big Heartbreak

This is the second in a four-column series chronicling my recent father-son road trip to the homes of two Founding Fathers and more.

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More than two centuries before the creation of Twitter, Thomas Jefferson distilled his life’s accomplishments into this tweet-length epitaph inscribed on his tombstone:

“Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.”

In truth, 140 pages in an encyclopedia would be insufficient to chronicle Jefferson’ genius, much less 140 characters. Still, it is difficult to fathom leaving out mention of being the third president of the United States.1monticelloback

Perhaps a greater omission is this deed: “Designed Monticello.”

Jefferson called Monticello – meaning “little mountain” in old Italian – his “essay on architecture.” The neoclassical mansion was four decades in the making and remains such a masterpiece it is recognized as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations.

Remarkably, Jefferson designed every aspect and angle, inside and out, despite having no formal architectural training.

As with most things that interested him, which means MOST things, Jefferson became an expert by reading extensively – in this case, studying architecture, particularly that of ancient Rome and the Italian Renaissance.

Greg Woodburn, in the flesh, and Thomas Jefferson, in bronze.

Greg Woodburn, in the flesh, and Thomas Jefferson, in bronze.

A true Renaissance man, his passions ranged from architecture to viticulture, music to bird watching, botany to beer making.

For good reason President Kennedy once famously quipped, at a dinner honoring 49 Nobel Prize winners: “I think that this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

As pleasing as the Declaration of Independence is to the ear, Monticello is to the eye. Viewing the colossal columns and domed rooftop and arched windows from outside is like studying a Monet water scene; the longer you stare, the more perfection you see.

The interior – the grand entry hall filled with Native American artifacts collected by Lewis and Clark, the voluminous library, Jefferson’s bedroom chamber, the dome room above and cellar below – is equally breathtaking.

Too, there are the long and elegant north and south terraces that housed a dairy, smokehouse, kitchen, stables . . .

. . . and slave quarters.

More than being architecture as art, beyond the magnificent panoramic view that extends 45 miles on a clear day, the piece of Monticello that struck me most profoundly is that the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence containing the words “all men are created equal” owned men – and women and children.

Now, I knew Jefferson was a slave owner and that DNA tests support the claim he may have fathered as many as six children with Sally Hemings, a household slave. But these distressing truths do not resonate as deeply and poignantly in two dimensions in a textbook as they do in three dimensions in person.

Indeed, seeing the squalor slave quarters; walking the plantation fields where slaves toiled; hearing that 130 slaves were sold, families torn apart, after Jefferson’s death to pay off his debts, the ugly auction held right here on the lovely West Lawn of the mansion; opened my eyes wider than before.

One final sight – and site – opened my tear ducts as well. It was a graveyard near the parking lot. Not the wrought iron-fenced cemetery containing the tall obelisk tomb of the Founding Father who died on July 4, 1826 – 50 years to the day after the signing of the famous document he drafted – but rather a bare plot scattered with rocks and surrounded by trees, marked with a small sign reading:

“Buried in this graveyard are more than 40 of the nearly 400 men, women, and children who lived in slavery at Monticello from 1770 to 1827. Although the names of Monticello’s enslaved residents are known, it has not been possible to identify the individuals buried here.”

Reflecting in the shade at this unfairly solemn spot, this sinful truth was powerfully clear: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” were not unalienable rights for everyone at Monticello.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden&Me_cover_PRCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

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Column: Venting Some Anger

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Reasons to Count to 10 . . . or 100

If you were expecting 700 words of nice this morning, phone your sweet grandma. I’m in a sour mood. But before getting angry, let me share Thomas Jefferson’s “Ten Rules For A Good Life” I recently came across:

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

One of Thomas Jefferson's 10 Rules For A Good Life: "When angry, count to 10 before you speak; if very angry, count to 100."

One of Thomas Jefferson’s 10 Rules For A Good Life: “When angry, count to 10 before you speak; if very angry, count to 100.”

Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.

Never spend your money before you have it.

Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will never be dear to you.

Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.

Never repent of having eaten too little.

Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.

Don’t let the evils that have never happened cost you pain.

Always take things by their smooth handle.

When angry, count to 10 before you speak; if very angry, count to 100.

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After counting to 10, let me say I get angry when adults complain about today’s youth being lazy/rude/entitled/fill-in-the-negativity. The 88 high school seniors honored at this year’s 32nd annual Star Scholar Awards are evidence that Millennials are awesome.

And while the Star Scholars stand out for their academics, volunteerism, athleticism, artistic talents and more, consider this: for each of them honored there were countless other worthy of nomination.

Here is another example of our amazing youth: over the past 17 years, students from Buena High have donated 11,000 hours restoring the Anacapa Island landscape to make it more hospitable for seabirds.

For these efforts the National Park Service has recognized Buena’s Environmental Club with the national Hartzog Volunteer Youth Group Award.

And while Ventura County is indeed special, rest assured every county across this great nation has its own star scholars and young volunteers.

The future is in good hands.

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After counting to 30, let me say I get angry when the Ventura County Board of Supervisors rushes through a proposal, such as it did by scrapping a three-member ethics commission that ruled on campaign finance complaints and replaced it with the appointment of two people – one who will investigate and a czar who will rule.

The law – co-authored by supervisors Steve Bennett and Kathy Long, and passed by a slim 3-2 vote – is troubling because it raises conflicts of issue, most especially because one of the two appointees has previously campaigned for and given money to Bennett.

Most agree campaign finance reform is a good thing, but this change is like trying to improve officiating in college basketball by allowing one of the coaches to handpick an alum from his school to call all the fouls.

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This statistic made me count to 50 in anger: on one single day this past January we had 1,147 homeless children, women and men in Ventura County.

Granted, this is 20 percent less than two years ago but that is meaningless to these 1,147 fellow humans.

We can, and must, continue to do better.

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I had to count to 70 after reading about a 6-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother who were picked up by Maryland police and held for more than five hours before their parents could even see them.

The siblings’ “crime”? Walking home from a park.

“Two kids that are unaccompanied and they’ve been walking around for about 20 minutes,” said the man who called 911.

It is not an isolated incidence of lunacy. A mother in South Carolina was jailed for letting her 9-year-old play alone in a park and a Florida mom was arrested because her 7-year-old was alone on a playground, to mention just two recent stories.

There weren’t enough jails to lock up the all the parents in the 1960s and ’70s who let their kids explore the world.

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I have to count to 100 every time a law enforcement officer (or volunteer cop) mistakenly shoots a person with a handgun when he or she meant to use a stun gun.

Who had the bright idea of making a stun gun in any way resemble a handgun in the first place?

How about forcing manufacturers to design stun guns shaped like flashlights – then a cop’s mistake of devices won’t be deadly.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”