Update from Karl

Dear Friends—

I’m writing on behalf of Cheryl Miller, Patrick Coleman, Hollis Stauber and myself.

I am happy to announce that we have the beginnings of an event plan. On October 23 we will have the "Will, listen to this!"--"An evening of presidential readings in honor of Will Powers" somewhere in the Twin Cities. Please mark your calendar and help us recruit other interested people.

After trying to communicate by blog with great help from Lori Williamson, the four of us have come to the conclusion that we are the e-mail generation, not the blog. So we are going to plan to send out an e-mail each month until we get together in October. Feel free to use this list as a way of communicating with everyone.

At our October 23 event, people will have the opportunity to share a funny line, a provocative quote, or a great example of political absurdity that you would have wanted to share with Will. For example, from Pat,

Quotes that either made me think of Will or that I would have loved to have shared with him…

From Mark Twain’s Roughing It, published during the administration of Grant, there are hundreds of great descriptive phrases like “dust-licking pimps” (applied to those who discriminate against the Chinese) or “”a step peculiar to myself – and the kangaroo” (his self assessed dancing style) but what I would like to read to Will is the end of the book,

The moral of it [the book] is this: if you are of any account, stay home and make your way by faithful diligence; but if you are “no account,” go away from home, and then you will have to work, whether you want to or not. Thus you become a blessing to your friends by ceasing to be a nuisance to them – if the people you go among suffer by the operation.

I’ m uncertain why this made me think of Will, but the quote I liked from the Smith’s biography of Grant is from Lincoln who, before the Civil War, said “I hope god is on my side but I must have Kentucky”.

So as you read the biography and the work of fiction from the same period, think about what you would have loved to read to Will.

Lori, can you share with all of us where we are on assignments?

Cheryl, Pat and Hollis, please add anything I have left out. Everyone else, please join in.

Best, Karl

News

As Karl has noted, we will be primarily communicating by email. As I am unwilling to give up the blog (so much less hateful than a wiki) I will repost his updates here as well (that'll be the next post).
I will also note that we've had four more people join our effort: yah! Keep them coming, though...we still need eight more people!
Thanks, all, for your efforts. Hope the reading is going well! Put that long weekend to good use! (For instance, I've still got to find my books...)
- Lori

Hi Lori,
I notice that I have not been assigned a president. May I volunteer to take on James K. Polk? A really "interesting" fellow, and two terms I believe.

Hamp