Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln II

Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln II

[*if there was a fictional or theoretically possible alternative path for Mr. Lincoln,
would it go something like this?]

Abe woke up in the hotel room, air cool and to his liking, with a freshness that
cleaned his mind.
Ah, for a moment, his sleep so delightfully deep, free from the awake world.
Waking can be stressful, and dreaming he felt a lightness, a rebirth so to speak.
The war was over.
Again and again, would every day left in his life start this way?
His shoulder pinched and he winced as a drop of blood came to the surface.
Another reminder of a miracle, that night, at the Ford Theater.
That night Elizabeth their waitress was bringing drinks and tripped over Abe's feet as the gun was raised
and the trigger was pulled. Abe fell forward and the bullet intended for his head glanced off his shoulder, ripping and tearing flesh and bone.
There had been some time elapse now and healing was marginally successful.
He reminded Mary of that often as she griped at his incapacitation.
He was alive, they were alive, and finally in Vermont as Mary had planned.
Their presidential suite at the Equinox was stunning, comfortable and worth settling into.
He may very well die here. Abe agreed to several speaking engagements in exchange
for permanent residency at the hotel. He and Mary left Illinois and Washington DC
for Vermont to escape all the rat races, the assassins, the political animals.
He sipped the local spring water and nudged Mary.
"It is time to vote."
She smiled and slowly mobilized.
December 18,1880.
Women had gained the right to vote.
Abe was 71, Mary 62.
They were feeling their age, but they proudly walked to the town hall
to vote in this historic election.

And yet there is a story perhaps farther fetched and still possible...
as Abe grew accustomed to local politics in Vermont, he started to notice
that while each voter was free to speak up, very few voters actually did speak up
and some did not vote at all.
As he wanted to level the playing field, he practised with
representing local people in their local town political fights.
Could you imagine how hard that was for local elected officials?
pretend monkton chronicles headlines Christmas 1880
Abe Lincoln is up against you...how dare he...he is representing that uppity town citizen
who used to be quiet...
Abe Lincoln came to the town meeting again last night...says that is not how
they do in Illinois..well maybe we should show him what we do to flatlanders...
Abe Lincoln thinks his wife should vote, well nah nah...
Abe Lincoln believe town meeting antiquated in 1880....
So he thinks if he won the Civil War he can tell us how to run a town meeting?

OK, it did not happen,
Abe was assassinated and never made it to Vermont.
Abe's only child to live to adulthood, a son, lived in Manchester and built a mansion, Hildene.
Now all of Abe Lincoln's descendants are gone.
What if events had turned ever so slightly?
Just speculating on another way it might have happened,
Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's birthday

There I stood in the fourth grade, my brownie camera loaded with film. Clicking pictures with excitement. Our class took a long bus ride to Springfield Illinois to the museum and state house. The brownie camera photos etched in my mind, the paper versions long lost to childish neglect. Pictures of us each holding what we bought at the museum store.
Looking at all the Lincoln memorobilia. We always had a life-sized bust of Lincoln at school. I used to run my hands over his face and head. I liked the way the smooth stone felt.
Every classroom in Illinois had Washington, Lincoln and Kennedy pictures up on the wall. I would just stand and stare up at them. Wonderment would be a good word, or Awe. Now he is 200 years old. Born in a remote cabin. Hard work, persistence and some luck I suppose brought him to be one of the all time great presidents and icon for little schoolgirls like myself.
Much older now, I also think his war changed my life in subtle or not so subtle ripples. My mother telling of my great great great grandfather who died in the battle of Shiloh, one of the bloodiest battles of the civil war. I wondered how he died. From a lead ball, infected wound, or dysentery? He likely spoke broken English and bohemian. His wife had a hard time getting widow's pension because they had changed his name to Green from Myrtengren. Eventually, Mom said, she got $5 a month for her and her 4 children. Mom still carried the pain of memories passed down about a war that left a new immigrant widow to fend for her and her 4 children. Part of me wondered how the pain could pass through the generations to my Mom. That is how war is. The pain is so severe and deep that it trickles down until later generations may wonder what was the big deal? Mothers tell children of the sorrow. loss and pain, hoping the children will make peace when they see war coming. With tears mothers send their sons and daughters to wars praying someday it will come to an end and that someone will remember their sacrifice. Men know war can be an inevitable struggle to right what can be terribly wrong.
But the war makes all suffer and the memory is important so as to prevent future war if we can.
I am sure that Lincoln, too, suffered through the war with ambivalent feelings of a man sending thousands to die for a cause he believed was worth the destruction.
Mom, I hope I got all the details right.