By JIMMY DUNNE
It was pretty late. Stopped by this small, kinda locals-only bar that was ‘bout to close up. Only a few folks still in there.
I can’t remember the town I was in. Just somewhere out there. Great ol’ dark bar. Creaky floors. TV mounted behind the bar on the news channel.
Three guys sat at a couple of stools to my left. Two looked about thirty-five. One was older. Other than these scarfy-looking things ‘round their necks, they looked kinda normal. Shoes weren’t exactly from Neiman Marcus.
This is the part where I don’t think you’re going to believe me. And I don’t think it had anything to do with the snappy cocktail I was slurpin’ down once I got in there.
It was Jefferson. Adams. Franklin.
Yeah, that Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin.
How they’re alive today? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m just telling you they were sitting there. They didn’t know it, but I hit the voice memo on my iPhone and recorded the whole thing.
Between slugs of their beers, they were mesmerized by the bar’s TV.
They were watching Trump boasting about owning Greenland, “If we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”
Adams shook his head. “Our whole idea was about getting’ away from a jackass king in England.” Jefferson watched the screen the way a farmer watches the sky—like he wasn’t looking at a man, he was looking at what grows around him.
Franklin added, “He wanted Canada. Then Venezuela. Today it’s Greenland. What’s tomorrow’s headline going to be?”
“Greatness wasn’t meant to be measured in territory. Or in what you can take,” Jefferson said, still looking up at that screen. “It’s measured in what you refuse to do—when you could.”
“They forgot,” said Franklin. “It’s not the size of your stick. It’s the size of your heart.”
They took a big slug.
Adams glanced over at me, and whispered to his pals, “I think that guy with the foo-foo drink is trying to listen.”
“He’s pointing his wallet at us,” noticed Franklin.
Adams leaned in, like I couldn’t hear. “It’s not a wallet. Got a screen on it—like that thing on the wall.”
Franklin said, with a smirk, “He’s Irish. He’s probably plowed.”
I couldn’t wait to call my brothers and sisters and tell ’em that one. I didn’t even finish my drink. Headed out, walking through the parking lot to my car. As I beeped it open, I heard Jefferson call to me from the bar’s front door.
“My friend, my friend. Sorry to bother you. Can I ask you something?”
“Of course, Mr. Jefferson.”
Quietly, he asked, “Do you still believe in the American Dream?”
“I do, sir.”
He looked me in the eyes. He said, with such gentleness, “You know, the problem isn’t your president.”
He paused.
“He just happens to be the biggest weed that sprouted in your garden,” he said. “You’ll always have weeds in your garden.”
After a second, he continued. “The problem’s in the soil, my friend. You gotta till your soil. That’s where the dream needs to live.”
I stood there in the quiet of the night, thinking about what he’d just said.
He saluted me, “Goodbye.”
I got in my car, and he watched me drive away. As I passed him pulling out, he said with a loving look on his face, “Nice horse.”
I smiled back and drove off. I just kept thinkin’, Thomas Jefferson saluted me — and didn’t salute him back. I just wish I said something. To say thank you.
Everything I loved in that flag, in our country, in our freedom, I felt in that moment in that parking lot.
I kept driving through that town. Thinking ‘bout what he said.
I suppose I should fess up. As I was driving around, just thinking about it all, I did pass their town’s local theater. The marquee of their current play read, “Our Founding Fathers.”
I don’t care. It was real to me.
(Editor’s note: Jimmy Dunne is a modern-day Renaissance Man; a hit songwriter with songs on 28 million hit records, songs, scores and themes in over a thousand television episodes and many hit films; a screen writer and producer of hit television series; award-winning book author; an entrepreneur and Pacific Palisades “Citizen of the Year.” Subscribe to his substack and reach out to him at [email protected])