The distinguished looking gentleman on your left is none other than the great writer, civil librettists and naturalist Henry David Thoreau. Now if the name does not ring a bell two words should. Those two words are "Walden Pond" --for this is where the great writer spent two years, two months and two days living in a hovel in order to study nature, and write about the amazing Walden Pond. Today is the anniversary of the first publishing of that great work. Walden Pond was not out in the middle of nowhere. In fact, it was only a mile and a half from the home where Thoreau had always lived. Once while on a trip for supplies from this very nearby town, Thoreau was accosted by the local tax man who wanted the great writer to pay his past due "poll taxes". Imagine that! Imagine owing tax money in order to vote? Thoreau refused and was thown into jail. From this incvident came the great play "The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail" The point of writing about Walden, by the way was to show that mortal man and mother nature are never that far from one another. Thoreau's very best friend in all the world was the beloved poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. Through him, Thoreau met and was influenced by some of the greatest writers of the day including Nathaniel Hawthorne! Thoreau was an abolitionist and a civil liberationist. He believed in peace "at all costs". Now isn't it funny that today's important association with a great man of peace is the aniversary of a sad day in war: the day in 1945 when the United States for the second time in three days dropped an atomic bomb on Japan: this time on the city of Nakasaki. On this same day, the Soviet Union declared war on the same embattered country. I wonder what Thoreau might have to say about that? War is never the answer and someday mortal man will learn this. It won't be easy. Men's passions seem to win over logic and communication! But as Henry David Thoreau fought and advocated peace and freedom so should we. But never for an agenda. I think Mr. Bush needs to read Thoreau a whole lot more! What do you think?