Dear Historian:

Back in Redbone when I was a girl, we used to love to listen to Old Hephzibah. She had been the housekeeper for Georgie Washington way back when. She would tell us all the goings-on that never made it into the history books. It seems that Georgie had a flourishing hemp trade that he used as a tax deduction because he sold it to make rope for the Navy. And of course the Navy was only interested in the main part of the plant, so Georgie, thrifty little fella that he was, would save the leaves, which he would dry out and set aside in case the British tried to blockade tobacco as part of the war effort.

Now one day Jimmy Madison and Tommy Jefferson and Georgie W were sweating over the Declaration of Independence when they ran out of smoking mixture. Well, George W obliging handed around some of his hemp-leaf collection and they got right back to work again. Except that TJ kept calling it the Declaration of Underpants now, which the other two thought was the funniest thing they had ever heard. When they got their breath back they loaded up their pipes again and Jimmy Madison said to remember to leave enough room at the bottom for ol' Johnny Handjob to sign his name, and that set them off again. They wiped their eyes and loaded up their pipes and set back down to work with only an occasional giggle to distract them.

Then George 'Dubya took his wooden teeth out and pretended he was holding a conversation with Georgie the Third of England, clacking the teeth and talking out of the side of his mouth whenever the king was supposed to answer, and that had Jimmy and TJ right down on the floor, rolling round with the dogs. TJ said that if 'Dubya didn't stop it he was going to declarate HIS underpants, and that had 'Dubya right down on the floor too.

After a while they got up and dusted themselves off and loaded up their pipes and swore that they were going to finish the job by sundown. Then 'Dubya asked Jimmy Madison to read back what they'd managed to get down so far, and Jimmy put on his glasses and read "We hold thefe truthf to be felf-evident," and they just HOWLED!

It was fortunate that Martha came home at that moment and chased them out to clear their heads, or the history of this country might have been much, much different....