Happy New Year! I’m hoping that the sinus infection that has floored me for the last 11 days isn’t a harbinger of things to come in 2017. But while I’ve been down for the count since the beginning of the year I have to say the last few days of 2016 were good ones.

Steve and I celebrated our 15th anniversary on December 29th! Time flies… We celebrated with a trip to one of our favorite places, New York City, spent time with friends and took a trip to the theater. What did we see? HAMILTON!

As an historical figure I think I can safely say Hamilton is not at the top of everyone’s mind when asked to recite a fact or two about a founding father. And certainly not in freestyle rap.

I know you’ve all probably read more than you think you need to know about this Broadway smash, but that won’t stop me from piling on, so I will. If you have the opportunity I highly recommend you see it.

The opening number, which if you didn’t see it performed live at the Grammy Awards you can view here, set the scene and drew me in for a wild ride:

Alexander Hamilton

Lin Manuel Miranda succinctly reduced the salient events of Alexander Hamilton’s life into an interesting, inspiring and entertaining 3 hours, with memorable songs and such humor, sadness, and inspiration I found myself both laughing and crying (and cat calling) through the whole show. As an historical figure I think I can safely say Hamilton is not at the top of everyone’s mind when asked to recite a fact or two about a founding father. And certainly not in freestyle rap. But he should be, (well, maybe not the rap part) and I’ll wager many have left the theater and bought Ron Chernow’s book to study up.

My favorite things about the musical? Hamilton and Lafayette agreeing; “Immigrants. We get the job done.” That line elicited big applause from the crowd. Also, the line from “I’m Not Throwing Away My Shot”: “Just like my country I’m young, scrappy and hungry, and I’m not throwing away my shot.”

Revolution wasn’t easy, everyone was an immigrant, and it took guts and brains to stand up for what they believed in and to win. We could use some of that now.

I mentioned to my friend Jan (who had seen the show the night before) that young kids who go to the performance will think our founding fathers were mostly people of color – black and Hispanic. “Good!” she replied. True that. Western Europeans were different in color from Native Americans. Immigrants are immigrants, and the stories are the same. We come to seek a better life and to give our best to our new country, regardless of the color of our skin.

We get the job done.

Deborah