#1234 Jefferson's Talents

[Thomas Jefferson] could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play a violin.
— James Parton, 1874

This week, we ask President Jefferson to confirm or deny these reported talents.

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Further Reading:


pizza-minuet

Order a Pizza, Tie my Shoes, Sing in the Shower, Overdraw my Checking Account, Change a Printer Cartridge

The Jefferson Watch

From Clay:

Jefferson’s early biographer James Parton famously said the third president could “Calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin.”
A version of that famous list of talents has been in my stage-performance introduction for several decades now. But when I actually paused to read Parton’s statement carefully the other day, I realized, all over again, what a remarkable man Jefferson was. And that’s just an abbreviated list of his talents.
It also made me realize, all over again, my own glaring limitations as a man and as a Jefferson impersonator. Let’s go through the list. Calculate an eclipse. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I understand how an eclipse works. I remember at Stonehenge long ago my Oxford friend Douglas, a physicist, explaining an eclipse to a scientifically challenged friend using an orange, a grapefruit, and a tangerine. If the experts tell me there will be a total eclipse of the sun on August 21, 2017, I know how to plan my schedule and get myself somewhere in the eclipse corridor where the summer skies are likely to be clear that day. But if I had all alone to calculate the next total eclipse of the sun, I’d be flummoxed. To put it lightly.

Read this week's Jefferson Watch essay, "Order a Pizza, Tie my Shoes, Sing in the Shower, Overdraw my Checking Account, Change a Printer Cartridge".


What Would Jefferson Do?

 
 
One of the great qualities of the American character was the self-reliance that was thrust upon us by the 3,000 mile ocean that separated us from the skill sets of the Old World.
— Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson

Tune in to your local public radio or join the 1776 Club to hear this episode of What Would Thomas Jefferson Do?

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