The beautiful 17-year-old actress Madeleine LeBeau fled Paris in June, 1940, just hours before the Germans marched in. Like thousands of other refugees, she and her husband made their way with forged visas and all the complications, uncertainties, and delays imaginable in wartime. Just two years later, still only nineteen, Madeleine LeBeau would play a memorable role in a pivotal scene in what would become one of the most well-loved movies ever made: Casablanca.

I had some time on my hands, and before I knew it, I had time on my mind. Time flies, marches on, and sometimes just stands still. You can buy time, be on borrowed time, or run out of time. We can all see in these strange days, that time—with thanks to Mr. Shakespeare—is out of joint. Madison and Lincoln would join Silent Cal in reminding us—to take a famous line from the great American movie Casablanca—that "The fundamental things apply, as time goes by."

Turning to the back of the American one-dollar bill, I behold on the right side the "obverse" and on the left side the "reverse" of the Great Seal of the U.S. I pause to mention that to heraldry experts the "obverse" is the front and the "reverse" is the back of something. Why bring up heraldry experts? Because heraldry is the discipline of designing coats of arms, armorial bearings, and such things, and the Great Seal of the United States is a product of that art combined with the art of the statesman.

In September 1787, a new Constitution had miraculously come forth from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. But it would remain mere paper until ratified by 9 of the 13 states. Criticism of the Constitution began pouring into the press even before the Constitution was made public. In response, over the next 8 months, 3 founders, under the pseudonym "Publius," published 85 essays in New York newspapers defending and explaining the proposed Constitution.

After the American defeat in Vietnam in 1975, the communists confiscated the homes, businesses, property, and savings of those south Vietnamese supposed to be "counterrevolutionaries." Hundreds of thousands of these men, women, and children were forced into what were called "reeducation" camps. Many risked their lives and fled, including Binh and Mai Ngo, who made it to America. Their son became an American hero.

"Follow the science" and the "experts"—became popular maxims in America in the strange years 2020 & 2021, as government bureaucrats, politicians, media stars, and celebrities—themselves no scientists (or experts either)—struggled to figure out what, if anything, science and the experts wanted the rest of us to do. Following science and experts turns out to be a difficult and problematic enterprise. A hundred years ago, The Great Houdini tried to teach this to a Washington, D.C., infested with fake mediums.

The first duty of civic education is to teach each new generation of Americans what it is about the country that makes it worthy of the last full measure of devotion; or in my odd way of putting it, what is the essential and beautiful goodness in the country that makes it worthy of love. Understanding this and helping others understand it is the most important work in America.

September 17 is Constitution Day in America because on that day in 1787, after 4 months of deliberations, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Independence Hall in Philadelphia proposed the Constitution they had drafted to become the Supreme Law of the land. This was the end of one historic deliberation, but it was the beginning of another. The Constitution would be "of no more consequence than the paper on which it is written," until it was ratified by the people of the United States.

Twenty years have come and gone since September 11, 2001 became "9/11." It is a day not just for mourning victims but for honoring heroes, those on Flight 93 and the many civilians and first responders who risked and gave their lives trying to save others.

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses . . ." These are among the most world-famous lines of any work of American literature, and whoever hears or reads them identifies them immediately with the most famous statue in America. But that is usually where the familiarity ends. Many serendipities would be needed before these lines would come not just to be identified with the statue but to be inseparable from it in the eyes of the world.