American History 101

Any of you who know Mike know that he is a born story-teller. The man can weave a tale and often takes artistic license by telling the story the way he thinks it should be...even if that takes things a little to the left of accurate. Whenever he uses this talent to teach our kids the importance of various holidays or events in our lives, he tries to speak on their level, which is always amusing. Here is what I overheard him telling the kids on the 4th ....

"All right kids ... the 4th of July is a pretty big deal. Why? Because back in 1776, England started pushing us around. They made us pay taxes, they made us wear funny wigs, they made us drink crazy tea, and finally America said, 'Dudes! We're not going to do this anymore.' So on the 4th of July in 1776, we wrote 'em a nasty little letter. It was called the Declaration of Independence. It said, 'Dear England, thanks for Harry Potter in the future but we don't want your stinkin' taxes, your funny wigs or your bad tea. We don't even want to be part of your country any more. So take that. Kiss off. Love, America.' And then they signed it. Some of our founding fathers weren't as brave as the others. They signed it in little writing. But John Hancock signed his name in big ol' letters so King George wouldn't have to use his glasses to read it.

"When King George got the letter, he was so mad that he sent the largest army in the world to come fight our guys. Their army had big guns and matching red coats. Our guys had little guns and no shoes, but they loved America and they were ready to take on that big army so we could be free. Fortunately, we were smarter than the British so we got 'em surrounded and then we said, 'Take your red coats and bad teeth back to England and don't come back until 1812.' And that is how America started kicking butt. "

I'm sure our kids will all get A's in history now.