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We spent a lovely few days in Virginia this week. We returned to the Williamsburg area with neighbors so each of our one-and-only daughters could learn some American history and have some good company. The trip was pure pleasure from start to finish. Our neighbors are good people who are easy to be with. Their daughter is a few years older than Adella, and the girls complement, rather than compete with, each other.

The trip south was also a form of time travel that advanced spring for us by a good month. The flowers in the gardens and along the roads were gorgeous. The journey was a trip back in time, too. We filled our days with trips to Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Historic Jamestowne. At each site, the interpreters were as enthusiastic as they were knowledgeable about their area of interest, whether it was agriculture, trade, politics, government, or exploration.

Without a doubt, our favorite presentation came from a volunteer at Jamestowne who told us the story of John Smith, a diplomat, leader, explorer and gentleman whose intelligence, audacity, and sense of humor kept him alive when dealing with angry Native Americans and kept the first settlers alive through their first humble years in North America.

That people have a right to enjoy the fruit of their labors and determine the course of their lives in open cooperation with others--and will do exactly that--was a theme running through all the presentations. These basic human rights seem downright ordinary, yet these rights were revolutionary in the New World of the 18th century, when middle-class merchants and landowners began to insist on them and framed them in the Declaration of Independence. The story really is about ennobling the ordinary--us.

In so many ways, the struggle for those rights continues in some form in every generation--women's suffrage, child labor laws, the trade union movement, the Civil Rights Movement, OSHA. Returning to places like Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown, where the Revolution ended and Independence began, is a great reminder to keep asking the basic questions of what makes a decent life and to remain confident that the answers can be found and secured.

Can't get there from here? Try out these excellent sites:
 Historic Jamestowne
Colonial Williamsburg
Yorktown


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Image: The garden behind the Governor's Palace, Colonial Williamsburg.

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