History really comes alive

By The Daily Progress Staff

Published: June 28, 2008

Capt. John Smith is running for president, and Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross are getting married.

Holy history, Batman! What’s going on here?

Truly, we live in amazing times.

John Smith’s Web site deals straight on with the inconvenient fact that the captain hasn’t been seen in these parts since, oh, 1609.

“Isn’t he … dead?” asks the site (go to http://www.cbf.org).

Maybe so, but his “vision is ... alive.”

Capt. Smith has been resurrected by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to try to repair the beautiful land he once knew. Pollution, habitat loss, a collapsing seafood industry, all have marred the bountiful bay discovered by Smith and his colleagues with the Virginia Company four centuries ago.

Running for president, he’s decided, is the best way to gain the power needed to effect progress.

Now, fast forward a century and a half — or backward two and a quarter, we’re not quite sure.

Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross, Philadelphia hero and heroine of the Revolution, are getting hitched — appropriately at Independence Hall on July 3.

Franklin was a signer and shaper of the Declaration of Independence, and Betsy Ross is credited in folklore with sewing the first American flag.

They will tie the knot in their modern incarnations as Ralph Archbold and Linda Wilde, re-enactors who play the two historic figures in and around Philadelphia.

The entire wedding party will be in period costume. The public ceremony will feature Peter Nero and the Philly Pops, and the private reception will be held at historic City Tavern.

As William Faulkner once said, the past isn’t dead — it isn’t even the past.

It’s alive and walking the streets of Philly — or the sites of the Internet.

Lemonade standoff

We don’t recommend this, but we cannot help but admire the 12-year-old girl who chased after a guy who allegedly stole money from a lemonade stand.

Said Dominique Morefield, who was running the stand with friends in Terre Haute, Ind: “The guy came up and was, like, ‘Give me your money.’ I was shocked. It was just my immediate reaction to chase after him.”

She followed the man to a nearby house and called police.

Police then spent nearly an hour trying to persuade him to give himself up. Eventually he did.

The 18-year-old suspect had made off with a grand total of $17.50. Not to mention stealing the trust and innocence of a group of kids.

“I didn’t think anyone would come up to a lemonade stand and steal. That’s really low,” said 12-year-old Fred Er-stine, who was helping run the stand.