I Couldn't Watch The News Anymore So....

I finally finished the HBO miniseries, John Adams. I really liked it a lot. If you didn't get a chance to watch it, I'll break it down for you but first let me say this about that. I hold this truth to be self evident, those people didn't take care of their teeth, at all.

 

It starts out in Boston, the night of the Boston Massacre. John just got home from work on a cold snowy night when the fire bell rang. He ran out, with the rest of the town, to try and put out the fire. Only there wasn't a fire, there was a bunch of hurt and dead Bostonians and a bunch of British soldiers with guns. They arrested the British soldiers and they asked John Adams to be their lawyer (He's a lawyer/farmer). He listened to the soldiers story and he believed them, so he took that fateful case. Turns out it wasn't their fault, after all and John Adams, much to the disappointment of his cousin, Sam Adam's, (You'll remember him from his beer.), John Adams got them acquitted. I don't remember anything about that in my history books.

 

So fast forward to right before the Boston Tea Party, which didn't look like a very fun party if you ask me, Sam decided that John looked unbiased because he got those British soldiers off and nominated him to go to the Continental Congress on the behalf of Massachusetts. It's there we meet Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, he was a real scream, and all those other guys that signed the Declaration. They fought a whole bunch about whether they should break off from Britain or stick with them and they finally decided to end the deal. They wrote a letter to the King and told him to shove it where the sun don't shine. The King wrote back and told them over his dead body and they said fine and he said fine and then we were in a war. You know how that one ends.

 

They sent John over to France to help Ben Franklin gain support and raise money. Man, that French Court made Studio 54 look like a church social and that Ben Franklin was a partying kind of guy, he fit in just fine. John, on the other hand, did not. He was just a lawyer/farmer and didn't know what to make of all that cleavage and face powder. His wife made him take his oldest kid with him, John Quincy. After a little while John (the dad) sent John (the kid) with some guy to be his secretary in Russia. Not a smart move from where I'm sitting, who knows what kind of perv that guy might have been.

 

He was over in Paris for quite a while and he and his wife, Abigail, sent these great letters back and forth. They always started out "My Dearest Friend.". She wrote a lot more letters than he did because he wasn't having an easy time of it. She wasn't either but she wrote anyhow. Finally after a few years of this, he asked her to join him in Paris. She leaves the kids with relatives (I have to point out, while they were great as a married couple, they sucked donkey droppings as parents.) and hops on a ship. Abigail shows up and they have crazy hot sex and then she chews him out for not writing, as she should have. Somewhere after that, Thomas Jefferson shows up and takes John Adam's place and he gets sent to London. He meets with the King, who's very very creepy, but he's played by Tom Hollander, so there you go.  Yada, yada, yada, they come home.

 

George Washington gets elected President and John Adams gets elected Vice President and never did he once shoot his friend while quail hunting. Right around this time, France decides they've had enough of their King, even though he can throw a kick ass party, so they cut off his head. France wants us to help them out so that the British don't try and take them over, like they used to do. Britain wants us to do something, I didn't totally get that but we wanted to stay neutral. After two terms as President, Washington decides he's had enough and doesn't seek re-election, even though he could still do that then. I'm glad you can't now, I couldn't stand even another six months of George Bush.

 

John Adams is elected next, by three votes. It was a close election but nobody demanded a recount and Thomas Jefferson was Vice President. He didn't shoot anybody, either. John Adams tried to stay neutral, too. Unfortunately, around this time, factions started creeping in. The Federalists and the Republicans. Jefferson was a Republican (with all that money? Surprise, surprise!) and they supported the French and the other side was more military, encouraged by this Hamilton guy, not George, Alexander, and they supported the British. Hamilton really liked uniforms a lot. The whole thing eventually worked itself out but it was too late for John Adams. He wasn't elected in again, it was a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, of all people. They fought it out and Jefferson became President with Burr as Vice President. He did shoot somebody. He shot that uniform loving Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Hamilton died the next day but that wasn't in the movie, I remember that from that peanut butter commercial a few years ago. By then, Jefferson and Adams were pretty much enemies.

 

The Adams family retired to their farm where they lived with their daughter and her kids. John Adams ran her husband off because he didn't like him. Their daughter-in-law and her kids because his son was a loser so he disowned him..I'm telling you, these people were not good parents, and one of their other sons. That's when he started his memoirs. Let me tell you, it's a good thing that guy didn't live in times like this because he was a pack rat. He kept every paper he ever had. He'd be one of those guys that gets killed in his own house when an avalanche of news papers falls on his head.

 

John and Abigail get really old and right before their 54th anniversary she has a stroke or something. He stays with her and I bawled like a baby when right before she dies he keeps saying "My friend." and asking her not to leave him. He and Jefferson make up after Abigail dies and they write a lot of letters. Lots of letter writing went on back then, probably because they didn't have telephones.

 

Then John Quincy, the son he sent to live in Russia, gets elected President. They weren't like the Bush father and son, people liked that Adams. John Adams got all crotchety in his old age and chewed out the guy that painted the "Signing Of The Declaration Of Independence" for not being authentic. I think he was really mad because everyone in the picture was dead except him and Jefferson and he knew his time was coming. He was like 90 by then, it couldn't be long now.

 

Or could it be? Finally at that age of 92, John Adams took to his death bed. It was July 4th, 1826, fifty years after they signed the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was on his death bed, too. John Adams last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives." That was in the movie but I already knew that from when we went to Monticello. He was wrong, though, Jefferson had died earlier that same day with Sally Hemings at his side. (I don't know if that happened in real life or they just did that to make their point in the movie.). Weird, huh?

 

So there you go. A lot of other stuff happened but those are the highlights. If you want to read the letters between John Adams and Abagail, you can find them here. They're pretty interesting if you like that kind of thing.