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Everything Present at the Founding

from Crossing Paths with Johnny Appleseed by Jim Novak

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TRACK THREE: Everything Present at the Founding

So, the question remains, Why remember this apple grower whose life, however noble in its aims, seems not to have forestalled our modern environmental degradation, our ongoing white-supremacy problems, our increasingly exaggerated economic inequalities and our rank materialism and untrammeled commercialism?

As Lin-Manual Miranda said about his play “Hamilton,” “Everything present at the Founding is still present – the sins, paradoxes, and falling short of the ideal of All Men Are Created Equal.” So, my Johnny Appleseed project asks: What was our country like during the first generation after the Declaration of Independence? Today, how do we access what Lincoln called the Better Angels of our nature? Equality; non-violence; a strong sense of our collective interests…

We COULD look today at Johnny Appleseed and see merely an oddity, and of course we COULD shrug and say, Yes he’s The Path Not Taken. But he remains of interest I’d say as a sort of Counter-Narrative, a way to look beyond the stereotype of American individualism and to seek a better American future… a different kind of strength … and a way of being in Nature with an eye to wonder as well as plunder. (That line about “plunder” is pure de Tocqueville, by the way!)

Chapman is both strange and familiar to us in the 21st Century. If we travel back to his time, which we are about to do, we can examine his ideas about self-improvement and self-fulfillment. It is said that “He lived for others,” and it may be that we can discover some avenues for second chances, to re-examine some of the ideals of our country at the time of its Founding.

[SUNG:]
Apple Johnny hey, Apple Johnny ho
Paddling his canoe on down the Ohio
Apple Johnny ho, Apple Johnny hey
A cloud of apple blossoms, on a fine spring day

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from Crossing Paths with Johnny Appleseed, released April 20, 2021

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Jim Novak Ann Arbor, Michigan

Now work-shopping these Appleseed songs and stories into a one-man show. Singer-songwriter from Ann Arbor. Host of “Songwriters Open Mic” for over 25 years. Producer and videographer of half-hour TV programs, “Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor,” broadcast weekly from1996 to present (recent episodes on youtube). Former college teacher, program advisor, instructional designer for adult learners. ... more

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