Bass / lead guitar intro: DAH DAH — DAH DAH — DAH DAH – DAH! – DAH!
“They Say it’s your birthday!”
It looks like the Beatles knew what they were talking about!
It’s Benjamin Franklin’s Birthday!
It’s a fine winter day in 1706!
The little whippersnapper who would sign not only the Declaration of Independence, but the Treaty of Paris and the Constitution was making his Boston premier to a small group of his new relatives.
But what day was it?
It all depends on which calendar you subscribe to! In 1752 the calendar system changed for everyone in the colonies. Instead of his actual birthday being January 6th on the old calendar, Franklin gained 11 days and was forever to this day, born on January 17th, 1706.
Ah, maybe Ben really was a time traveller!
So, for all intents and purposes, Franklin was born on Sunday, January 17, 1706, at 17 Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts which was still a British colony. His birthplace is no longer standing, replaced by an office building. There is a bust of his head just above the second floor with the words, BIRTHPLACE OF FRANKLIN just above the windows. That’s it! A lasting legacy to the guy who invented electricity! (NO! He didn’t invent electricity – but he did “discover” the positive and negative charges that make it function. And, he really did get to fly a kite!)
The first floor of the current building has contained quite ironically, a Sir Speedy printer franchise in the early 2000’s, and now a Greco, Truly Greek restaurant just steps away from the Shake Shack on the corner.
The irony of the Sir Speedy franchise would definitely make Ben chuckle for two reasons. First, he became a printer in Boston and, after his secret move to London and Philadelphia to get away from his tyrannical brother (at least in his mind). Second, he was the first person that we know of to create a franchise system in the colonies. NO, not fast food! No, Benjamin Burgers! It was a post office franchise.
In another coincidence, Ben was baptized just across the street at the recently built brick building known as Old South Meeting House. It would become famous as the meeting place for those guys who dressed up as “Native Americans” and threw a party, and a significant amount of tea in the harbor!
His parents, Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger were from different backgrounds. Josiah was born in England, and Abiah in Nantucket, Massachusetts. They were quite busy with Ben’s 16 siblings! Seven from Josiah’s first wife, and 10 with Abiah, Ben being the 15th and youngest son.
Dad thought his son would go on to be a preacher and sent him to school when he was eight. That obviously didn’t work out the way dad wanted! Ben left school at ten and never returned. OJT (On the Job Training) was going to be Ben’s life. His work in his father’s candle shop and his penchant for reading led to dad sending Ben to his older brother’s printing shop.
But, that’s not what Ben really wanted to be. His personal career choice was more on the wet, salty side. He wanted to be a sailor! Ride the waves … see the world! But no luck on that as dad was not a fan of that idea. It seems he had an older son, Josiah, (gee, I wonder where he got that name?), who headed out to sea, and was never seen again! We don’t know what happened to him. Did he become a pirate? Did he marry an island girl and never return to the colonies? Whatever happened, Dad was not a fan of seafarers!
A rocky relationship with his brother, and those infamous letters to the editor (Ben writing under the name of, Silence Dogood) found Ben heading to London to work in two different printing shops.
Weary of London he returned to Philadelphia, where he worked for another printer before eventually setting up a business for himself before buying out the owner of the Pennsylvania Gazette.
Printer it was! Dry land! Printer’s ink under your fingernails!
But as we all know, that didn’t last for long either! Founding Father of a new nation was a full-time job.
So, Happy Birthday, Benjamin Franklin!
(You too could have been the owner of a Sir Speedy Printing franchise if only you would have lived a few hundred years more)!
But that was the least of his concerns! Benjamin Franklin had somehow traveled in time! In 1775, an abnormality in the space-time continuum had sent him to … now! But not just any, NOW! This was an alternate timeline. He was about to discover that in this, present day Williamsburg, Virginia, everyone knew …
The British Won The American Revolution!
