CATEGORY: CENTRAL OREGON

Jari sometimes surprised me with her sophisticated sense of humor.  An example I am remembering occurred at a small party we gave at our Tumalo house when Jari was ten years old.

A year before that, she had asked questions about the morality of George Washington because of something questionable she had heard about him at school.  I had told her that he had been a courageous, even heroic, man and a valiant first president.  I told her about Washington crossing the Delaware.  I also said that, like some other presidents, he was also a ladies man, and his morals in private life were not to be admired.  I even told her a story I had read about George, who, at a party at the home of a neighboring planter, had asked his host to procure a pretty maid of the household for him as a sexual partner.  He took her into a bedroom while the party was in progress, and when they were through, he gave her a gold coin.  The mistress of the house found out what had happened.  She took the money from her maid and, in order to shame him for his act, she gave the coin back to George.  He said, “If I had known it was you, madam, I would have given twice as much.”

At the afore mentioned party at our house, (not the party at which George Washington had seduced the maid) I was talking to one of our guests: our conversation was about Hiawatha, the legendary leader of the Iroquois Confederacy: the American Indian union of nations after which our democracy was patterned.  Jari was taking part in this conversation.  The person I was talking to said,  “So really it was Hiawatha and the Iroquois that our nation was patterned after–and to think that most people think of GEORGE WASHINGTON as being the father of our country!”   Jari said,   “Yes!  George Washington!  The father of us all!”