The father of our country

We celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday. It’s a good day to also celebrate George Washington, who was the “Father of Our Country.”

George did not have any children of his own, but he helped raise his wife Martha’s two children by her first husband. (She had four children, but two died before her marriage to George.) By all accounts George was a good father to those young kids and was heartbroken when his stepdaughter Patsy died at age 17 following a series of epileptic seizures. And when stepson Jacky died eight years later, George and Martha took their two children in and raised them as their own. All while George was in the midst of building a nation.

Washington was a pillar of integrity, which made him the obvious choice to lead this fledging nation. He only served two terms as President, retiring to his home at Mount Vernon when he could have been President for life. The colonies had enough of authoritarian rule by kings, he said. This new democracy needed to be led by citizens who would serve for a short time, then return to their homes and normal lives. It’s worked out pretty well for us for nearly 250 years.

How times have changed.

The presidency has been taken over by crass ambition, Congress is run by professional politicians who have forced out citizen legislators, and the Supreme Court is populated by some justices who think it’s OK to take money on the side.

What would old George think of his progeny today?

In Father George’s time, the military was only used to protect us from outsiders. He’d be aghast at the thought that we’d turn soldiers against our own citizens, especially since our Bill of Rights specifically gave the new Americans — many of them immigrants — the right to protest the actions of their government.

Not that there weren’t craven politicians to deal with in those days. If you’ve seen the play “Hamilton” or read the book it was based on, you know there was plenty of ambition and treachery going on behind the scenes.

But we prevailed because in the end, people did the right thing for the good of the nation.

Mary and I were fortunate to have good fathers. Like George Washington, they served their country honorably in war, helping to save the world from tyranny. Pat Cullen and Justin Tolan never achieved fame like George Washington, but they raised 11 kids between them and taught us the meaning of honor and integrity through their example.

Happy Father’s Day!