Hamilton

Dear Dad,

Over spring break, we listened to the Hamilton CD non-stop. For four days in the car, as we drove through New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, it’s all we played until we knew most of the songs and could sing along. Yes, I know, I can hear you in my head making fun of how awful I sing, well, I’ll tell you, I sound even worse trying to rap. We all sound pretty horrible, but it was still fun and we kept the windows closed so no strangers had to suffer.

As we listened, I found myself utilizing way too much data on my phone as I researched people — Hercules Mulligan and John Laurens — I’d never heard of before despite considering myself well versed in history. I also found myself looking up details of Hamilton’s life trying to separate out truth from fiction. As remarkable as the show is, in order to fit Hamilton’s life into three hours, Miranda did have to play around with some of the facts. After about my twentieth search, I got frustrated. There was only so much information I could find online, and even that had to be vetted to determine what was historically accurate. Why bounce around going from one website to another when there was a far better solution. The nerd in me won out, and I ordered the Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow, the same book that inspired Miranda to write the play. It’s a brick. When we got home from our adventure, it was waiting for me in puddle — thank god for plastic envelopes — on our stoop. Again, I can hear you chuckling and laughing about how slow I read. Yes, this book — at the rate of about ten minutes per page — might take me an eternity to complete. If I’m lucky I’ll finish by Christmas. But I’ve started it, and so far it’s interesting. Chernow doesn’t write like many historians. His writing isn’t dry; it’s actually rather engaging. 

What is most endearing, is listening to G3 sing and rap when he is in the shower. (He’d kill me if he knew I heard him. He’d really kill me if he knew I was writing about it.) It would have made you smile to see — or rather hear — him appreciate Broadway. He is especially adorable when he attempts to rap Lafayette’s part, accent and all.

I’ve lived in New Jersey way too long, and before that I lived across the river, and I had never been to the site of the duel that ended Hamilton’s life. That needed to be rectified. And so, I suggested a family pilgrimage on Saturday to Weehawken. It turns out that the precise site of the duel isn’t known. One website said that the train now runs through the field where the duel occurred. Another website said that the dueling site was somewhere below the cliffs where the bust and plaque now stand. Either way, we can now say that we were there and knock one more historical site off our “to see” list. 

Since it took nearly an hour to get to Weehawken, I wasn’t keen on turning around so quickly after snapping a photo of the dueling grounds. G3 suggested that we pick up the four caches in the area. I was game. My spouse, not so much. I’m not really sure what she dreads more, geocaching or battlefields. She did walk with us for a little while along the river and then she sat on a park bench to wait for us while we collected the caches. One was no longer there. Not surprising since it was a magnetic micro in the middle of the city. The other three we found easily enough. While searching for the last one, we ran into other cachers looking for it. I found it first. It turned out to be a brand-new cache, so I let G3 sign the log before me so that his name appeared first. Oh, I should tell you he changed his caching name. It used to be TeenyTinySpider, which is the name we gave him when he was a baby. We named him after my father-in-law, ImSpider, who randomly stumbled upon the game one afternoon while hiking on Garret Mountain. But G3 felt he had outgrown the name and he wanted something to honor you as well. Your caching name used to be MattituckMan, so G3 changed his name to MattituckSpider. 

Now that we have been to Weehawken, we would like to visit Hamilton’s house in Manhattan. However, driving into Manhattan and finding parking is a horrendous ordeal. So we will have to take the PATH. But not until G3 gets vaccinated. Once we can get him vaccinated, we’ll feel more comfortable with the idea of taking mass transportation. At least it’s something to look forward to in the hopefully not too distant future. Of course, it would have been more fun to look forward to it if you could have come with us.

When we got home, because our interest in Hamilton is now boarding on an unhealthy obsession, G3 asked if we could watch the musical again. We said yes, and surprisingly we all enjoyed it quite a bit more than we did the first three times. Now that I had done some research and now that we knew the lines and who the characters were we could follow along much better. I wish you had seen the play. I’d have loved to know what you would have thought of it — especially Jefferson’s character. I think his role — and the actor who played it — was spectacular. But he was sort of painted as the bad guy — obviously not at bad as Burr — and I’m not sure that would have sat well with you. It seems every day you’re gone, I just have more questions for you, questions I’ll never get answers to. 

Anyway, after the show we had a camp-in at G3’s request, our first in the new place. Despite sleeping on the hardwood floor, I surprisingly slept very well. 

I miss you!