WEBVTT
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Whenever you're ready, you tell me.
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I'm always ready.
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You sure.
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I don't know if I believe you.
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What is the first thing that you think of when you think of George Washington?
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The easy answer is the dollar bill, but it's really dentures.
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It's teeth.
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Well, no, you only know that because I gave you the I did now.
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That's one of the first things that I remember learning.
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Well, that's they were made like they were made of human bone.
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Well, back when we were young, they taught us in school that he had wooden teeth.
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Yeah.
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So, but I was thinking more along the lines of like when I say, What's the first thing you think about when you think of George Washington?
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You would think, you know, the dollar bill's probably fine, but America.
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America.
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I mean, you think about America.
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Yeah.
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Crossing the Delaware River.
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Crossing the Delaware, Delaware River.
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Yeah.
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George Washington did many a thing.
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Did he was he did he show up in Bill and Head's Excellent Adventure?
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I don't think it was only Abraham Lincoln.
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Okay, fair.
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That would have been awesome if he was.
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So we're talking about George Washington today.
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We've talked about doing the this podcast series, and naturally we're going to start with the OG.
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G dub.
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So I was reading through some of these notes, and I found a lot of it very interesting.
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So for the listeners, what we're going to do is we're doing the presidents.
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We're going to do all 47 of them.
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And well, I somebody will say, there's not really 40s.
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I know.
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There's always that much.
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I know.
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Save your save your comments.
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Save your comments.
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We're going to go through them.
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But I wanted to do things that were known about the presidents, things that were not, you know, lesser known things about the president, and then kind of like scandalous things.
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Oh, fun.
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And then messed up things.
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That can get that'll get really interesting later down the road into the 30s and 40s.
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Yeah, I know.
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But I was driving home from work earlier and I was thinking to myself, I want to set the scene for you.
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Because I've been thinking about this a lot.
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And I just had a realization, not today.
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I had this realization a few weeks ago that I'm an idiot.
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I've had many realizations that I'm an idiot, but I'm specifically an idiot because back then in the 1700s or 1800s or 1900s, you know, any of the time, in my mind, everything looked like the pictures that you see.
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Sure.
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So it looks like not just not like the actual how bad the pictures are because of the technology.
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Sure, sure.
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And so I was driving home from work today and I was thinking to myself, I was like, things don't really things look like they look now, you know?
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Yeah.
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George Washington.
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From your eye from your eyes' perspective.
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From your eyes perspective.
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So George Washington is just as real as me and you sitting here talking with each other.
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100%.
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Isn't that not the coolest part that actually we know all about this just from letters and stuff that have been found?
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Yeah.
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You know, of people's journals or letters that were sent back from you know people in the war.
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And you can kind of rebuild history from all of that.
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Yeah.
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And it's interesting because we always try to go back further and further and further.
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When you think about it, it's like this is actually pretty recent, all of this stuff.
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And so, you know, I read through this.
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I feel like I had a good understanding of, you know, George Washington and all that.
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And there's a lot of stuff in here that that we all know, but there's also a lot of stuff in here that I had no idea.
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I think we'll be both be pleasantly surprised how much we don't really know.
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Yeah.
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Because they don't put a lot of this cool stuff in in history books.
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Well, I'm also gonna put my ignorance on display for everyone to see because even I consider myself a history buff, but like I'm really bad.
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And if you if if anybody's listened to like all 60 something of these episodes, you'll see like my timelines of things is really bad.
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The other day was like five years ago, or or like, hey Nikki, you remember when we did this thing 20 years ago that I said was the other day?
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So that's how, because I'm looking like right now, I'm looking at the computer screen and it says the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797.
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And then in my mind, I'm thinking, well, the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.
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Right.
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So what happened in all of that time?
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Well, I mean, I guess I know all of the things that were happening, but I felt dumb because like in my in my dumb mind, I'm like, okay, well, we became a nation, and then immediately, or we declared our independence, and then like George Washington was immediately president.
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Yeah.
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And so had to fight the Redcoats.
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Uh, you know, what's interesting here, not to get sidetracked, but I don't I don't know if you just saw the story about the in downtown Lebanon at the roundabout, going through town, there's an old cabin that they're talking about maybe moving or demolishing.
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But I saw in the news last night it was built in 1801, which is what, five, four years after, you know, old G Dub was pres.
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Yeah.
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So that we've got that kind of history sitting in our backyard.
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I know.
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And when we get to Andrew Jackson, I'm excited about that one for us because we're here local in in Nashville.
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And I've been, Nikki and I have gone to the Hermitage twice in the past few months, and it's just like it's crazy to see all of the history and all the things that are just right there in front of us.
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And how do we preserve that stuff?
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It's even like when you look and you see that they're finding like Bible scrolls and all that kind of stuff.
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It's like, how's that stuff like make it through?
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Right.
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All of the things.
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I mean, think about you know, all of the stuff that happens, like if there's a tornado or a fire or any of these things, floods.
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Yeah, yeah.
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All of these things that have happened over the years, and and here we here we are, still with everything.
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Well, one of the uh one when we get to Andrew, Mr.
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Jackson, if you're nasty, um we should do a little uh go out to the Hermitage.
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Yeah, or go down to uh Old Town, which is off of Old Natchez down by me.
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And you can actually see a bridge, a stone bridge that the uh that he used to get across the uh Harpeth River.
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Yeah, that's awesome.
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We need to do it.
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And it's preserved.
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It'll be the Fairview Social on the road.
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I love that.
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All right, so the things that the people know about George Washington is obviously he was the first president of the United States, and he was the commander of the Continental Army.
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Yeah.
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And he won the Revolutionary War, and he refused to become king and resigning power.
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And so I want to stop on that one for a second because if you think about this, he was an honored, you know, commander and all that kind of stuff, and the people loved him.
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He got elected twice, yeah, like unanimously.
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Well, was he was he a what did he get?
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Do you say he got elected?
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Two two wait, let me go back.
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Did he cross the Delaware or the Potomac?
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I don't know.
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I'll follow up with that.
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Follow up with that.
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But everybody wanted to make him king, and he was like, nah, you know, because then we're just getting right back into you know what we're trying to get away from.
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That's right.
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And so I thought it was pretty cool that you know he he could have all of this power, but he, you know, he declined it.
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Yeah.
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And kind of set the set the stage of how the country's running, which the next one here on the list is setting the two-term precedent.
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Because, you know, he chose not to run again in 1796, stepping down in 1797, and it wasn't required by law.
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That's interesting.
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And it says that his example shaped Americ American political culture for generations.
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And then if you move on down, here's a crossing of the Delaware right here in Trenton in 1776.
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He's known for that.
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His farewell address was in 1796, and I wanted to pause on this one because it says that Washington's farewell address was published in 1796 as he prepared to retire.
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It warned against intense party faction, regional rivalry, rivalry, and permanent foreign entanglements that could pull the U.S.
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into Europe's wars.
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Here we are.
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Foreshadowing doing all of those things.
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That's a that's amazing.
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Maybe we learned about that growing up, but that to me is I did I did not know any of that.
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Yeah, I know.
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When I was reading through this, I was like, you know what?
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Even George Washington warned us.
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Yeah.
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Warned every hey, we need to mind our business.
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Holy smokes.
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We need to mind our business.
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And so I think that it's it's really um it's it's really cool to see this.
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That the sentence above that says the address reflected his frustration watching his own administration fracture, especially through the Hamilton-Jefferson rivalry.
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Yeah.
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Washington wanted national unity, but saw politics hardening into camps.
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I mean, it's hardened now more than it ever has.
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Sure.
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In 2026, here.
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Wow, that's amazing.
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I did not know that.
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So the next one, Mountain Vern, Mount Vernon, which I do I think that I'm gonna go there this spring.
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I think I'm gonna go there.
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Oh, really?
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I think I'm gonna go there.
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Drive?
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I'm gonna probably probably drive.
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I may fly, but I'm thinking I'm gonna go visit it because I was gonna do it in the winter, but I decided that I want to wait till spring so everything's in bloom.
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Sure.
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All the cherry trees and everything that are out there.
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It'd be really nice.
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Oh, that's amazing.
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It's Virginia, right?
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Mount Mount Vernon, Virginia.
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Yep.
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So you could do the drive and see some Civil War sites and tie it to some of the president's, you know, later grant and all that stuff down the road.
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I need to look at it and see if um, you know, any other presidents are connected to any of that, which I'm sure they are.
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I mean, it's Virginia.
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You know, we were up in uh coming back from Lexington yesterday, and I didn't realize because you think I thought Illinois for not again, not to get sidetracked, and I'm probably not doing this very much justice.
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Now, man, sidetracked.
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I didn't know Abe Lincoln was born in Kentucky.
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Oh, I didn't know that either.
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Yeah.
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So as I've been kind of knowing you were gonna be doing these and going through the presidents, um, we've got a lot of that history within a couple state radius of join me in my ignorance.
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Yeah, because I had no idea.
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No, sure.
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Sure.
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I mean, it wasn't always you learn about the Revolutionary War, but I don't know much.
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I should.
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Well, you just learn all the dumb things like George Washington chopped down the cherry tree.
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What they can put in a book, right?
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He had wooden teeth.
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Yeah, it's like all these child's tales, which you later find out that are not necessarily true.
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All right, so Mount Vernon.
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And then uh Washington on the currency, which I think that, like you said, the dollar bill.
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Everybody knows George Washington on there.
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Is he on any any coins?
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Yeah, he's on the quarter.
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On the quarter, yeah.
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So he got the quarter and the dollar bill.
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Yeah, you know what's funny is like I don't know that this is funny, but like I couldn't even pull out a dollar bill to look at it.
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I don't think I've had cash in my hand in years.
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No, and so like all that's going away.
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Here's another is he now the only president on a coin and a dollar bill?
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On a bill?
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No, because the penny is going by the way.
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The penny's gone.
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I officially retired the penny.
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Right.
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And then Jefferson's on the nickel.
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Yeah, and a ten dollar.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, okay, okay.
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That's all right.
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Hey, we're just spitballing.
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Hey, man, we're learning.
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All right, so those are the things that he's most known about.
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And so some of the lesser known things, which I when I read this, I was like, huh, I had no idea.
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He never lived in the White House.
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And the reason that he never lived in the White House is because he died in 1799, and the White House was not ready for occupancy until 1800.
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So he didn't, so he lived on in Mount Vernon for his presidency.
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I believe so.
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Some history buff might get on here and yell at us.
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But I am assuming so.
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Wow.
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Wow.
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No, so when was the when was the White House built?
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1800s?
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Yeah.
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R 1800 exactly.
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No way.
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So the notes here say he defined the presidency, but never got to live in the president's house.
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Did he help with the architecture and in the construction of it?
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I don't know.
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And molding what it is now?
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I don't know.
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Possibly.
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Wow.
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We are we are you you literally see how much you don't know when you're looking at this.
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Man.
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So he disliked public speaking and formal performance.
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I did know that.
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I wanted to talk on this.
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He says that he was not a natural showman and that he relied on written messages and carefully controlled appearances rather than constant public speeches.
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Sure.
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Which I find really interesting because, you know, if you're looking at people's personalities, you know, there's like the A personality, B, C, A is like going there and get them.
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Yeah, you know, just do whatever, not, you know, very little thinking on it.
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And then like he's probably more like a C personality because he's trying to think it all through.
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Right.
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He's trying to figure it out.