Tag Archives: Hamilton

You Are A Dork!

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This weekend, my wife confronted Sloan with some cold hard facts and a conclusion. She didn’t sugarcoat it nor dumb it down. In Sidney’s straight-forward approach, this is what she told our daughter:

Sloan, you play chess…

You are obsessed with Hamilton…

AND you collect ducks…

You are a DORK!

To our daughter’s credit, she didn’t bat an eye. She wasn’t caught off guard nor did she take any offense. In fact, she took my wife’s assessment as a badge of honor. Yes, Sloan embraced her inner-dorkiness.

I have written at length about Sloan’s affinity for chess and her fandom for Hamilton. However, I haven’t elaborated to the same extent about her love of ducks.

Sloan holding one of the ducks she found on Freedom of the Seas.

This final characteristic of Sloan’s dorkdom was spurned a year ago when we went on our cruise. She was drawn into the duck-hiding subculture of cruise ships and spent considerable energy trying to find the toy waterfowl while we were on-board.

Another photo of Sloan holding toy ducks she found on the cruise.

Since that experience, she has been all about the ducks. For whatever reason they appeal to her and she has started to amass quite the collection. Simply take a look at her night stand to get a quick idea about the value she places on these tiny toys.

A look at Sloan’s night stand….it is cluttered with ducks.

Now I won’t go as far as to say my daughter is a dork. Eccentric? Sure. But no matter how Sid and I decide to describe Sloan, one thing is non-debatable: I sure love her. Don’t Blink.

Why Jefferson’s Birthday Matters to Sloan

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So why does Thomas Jefferson mean anything to my daughter? Well, I will tell you this: It isn’t because she followed in her dad’s footsteps of being a U.S. President child prodigy.

Please humor me as I tell you why Thomas Jefferson matters to my daughter.

No, it is something else entirely.

Give up? One word…HAMILTON.

I really don’t know how it happened, but one day Sloan just really started loving the play Hamilton. Seriously, it was like overnight. Sid and I have watched it before but it was years ago before Sloan had reached an age of reason.

Sloan loves “Hamilton” so much we got her Hamilton pajamas for her birthday.

But starting about six months ago, Sloan somehow discovered the play and has been belting out the songs ever since. If you are familiar with Hamilton, you know Thomas Jefferson plays a pretty major role as an antagonist to the title character. It is kind of funny, because how he is portrayed in the play is pretty much exactly how I had envisioned him for most of my life.

I don’t deny Jefferson’s sketchiness and I do recognize that he is a controversial figure. At the same time, I sincerely value his contributions to the United States of America. It is because of his role as a founding father and his eccentricities that I ranked him #3 when I released my Top Ten U.S. Presidents blog post back in 2017.

When I presented at a conference in the D.C. area back in 2022, I had the pleasure to escape the hotel for an evening to tour the sights with my then-boss. During a previous visit to our nation’s capital I didn’t get the chance to see the Jefferson Monument but I wouldn’t be denied this time around. As with many of the other monuments, the Thomas Jefferson tribute was much larger than I imagined.

I took this photo back in 2022 when I visited Washington D.C. and had the chance to step inside the Jefferson Monument.

I know I am totally going off script now as the point of this post was to discuss why Jefferson matters to Sloan but let me say one more random thing: I love the $2 bill. It truly is just as unique as our third president and I think one of these years a handful of the bills will be crowned my top gift of the Christmas season (have you ever watched someone open an envelope to find $10 in $2 bills?—it is pretty funny).

This is me holding seven $2 bills. I put them in an envelope and used them as a white elephant gift back in December 2024.

But back to Sloan. Thanks to a play that has captured the interest of millions, my daughter has a solid grasp on key moments and prominent figures of early American history. This includes knowledge of the author of the Declaration of Independence who was born on April 13, 1743. Don’t Blink.