A reconstruction of an eighteenth-century kitchen, at James Monroe's homestead museum. Ash in the food must have been a chronic problem with fireplace cooking.

"When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and noble?" -- Adam Smith

Andrew Johnson became president because of the infamy of John Wilkes Booth. One evil man cost the nation dearly; Johnson wasn't a fraction of the man Abe Lincoln was.

The final resting place of President James Polk, in Nashville.

An early photo of James Polk and his wife Sarah, taken in 1849.

During Polk's single term as President, Texas joined the Union, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty established the border between the US and British Canada.

Polk died at age 53 in 1849, only 103 days after leaving the presidency, of cholera.

"Who has deceived thee so often as thyself?" -- Ben Franklin

"Government is at best a petulant servant and at worst a tyrannical master." -- George Washington

"Truth will ultimately prevail where there are pains taken to bring it to light." -- George Washington

"When one side only of a story is heard and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it insensibly." -- George Washington

George Washington doesn't have the intellectual reputation of some of his fellow Founders, but he understood clearly what he was fighting for. Great leaders know when to stop talking and take action.

Our raspberries are pretending it's not yet November.

The grapes were bountiful this year but now that's over.

Puget Sound is beautiful year around, but winter days grow short at 47° latitude.

Civil War vets shaking hands in 1913. Reconciliation is always possible to those with good faith.

" Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in." -- Andrew Jackson