rank’s favorite memory of school is walking into a classroom for the very first time, looking up to see the alphabet begin in the corner of the room, waaaaay up near the ceiling, stretching allll the way around the room.

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee

(and so on)

He says that his breathing stopped, his little jaw dropped, his eyes became big as saucers, and he thought, “They want us to learn all this?”

I (Ginny) have a favorite memory -- from high school. It was arriving one morning to see the look on our history teacher’s face as he stared across the street from his class room, where some of us… I mean someone… had fastened a noose around a straw-stuffed figure with his name on it, and dangled it from an oak tree. Yes. We… I mean someone… had hung him in effigy! Why?

This is a favorite memory because, with time, distance, and experience, I KNOW that learning can and should be EXCITING! That teacher should have had us salivating in anticipation of every class as another opportunity to peer unabashedly into the lives of fascinating people who embossed their mark onto the map of our lives and actually influenced not only our past, but our future. Instead we struggled to stay awake.

(Q) What makes me suddenly so enthusiastic about history? (A) A recent viewing of the HBO (14 hours on DVD) series depicting the adult life of our second president, John Adams. Not George Washington? you might ask. No. John Adams. A man whose wisdom and naïveté were clumsy partners on the dance floor of his life. A man who was both eloquent and tongue-tied. A man whose wife was his “dearest friend” and the polish that made him shine. His stubbornness and lack of diplomacy held him back, while his sense of honor, integrity, and patriotism propelled him forward.

Viewers are like flies on the wall (an appropriate analogy considering the buzzing and swatting that went on during those times), seeing to the very core of the creation of our independence. Myths are dispelled. Carefully documented facts paint a picture not so pretty, but absolutely awe inspiring. Our heroes had aches and pains, insecurities and inadequacies, poor lighting, brown teeth, missing teeth, wooden false teeth and, no doubt, bad breath. They also had fierce and fiery relationships (both political and personal), and they stoutly suffered tragedies that made me, for one, feel like a total wimp. Some scenes -- like a mastectomy without anesthetic -- had me closing my eyes and covering my ears.

George Washington modest at first, fed up in the end? The rotund and gout-stricken Benjamin Franklin a ladies’ man? Alexander Hamilton, a fashion fanatic? Thomas Jefferson, shy and inarticulate? (Most interestingly, he died on the same day as his friend, Adams -- the 4^th of July -- on the 50^th anniversary of our independence.)

Left wanting more, we watched “the making of” and were taken by the way the biographer summed up Adam‘s philosophy by quoting him:

"Live your life with honor,

with integrity,

and never hesitate to help another."

In that spirit, we’re reaching out to those of you who have called (or those who might have called) to say that you or someone you know will be scheduling a session with us “as soon as you can afford it.” FROM THE TIME YOU READ THIS UNTIL THE END OF JULY ‘08, anyone mentioning the name JOHN ADAMS will receive a $20 reduction in our fee!

On the subject of History (with a capital H) -- for those of you who recently saw Oprah’s two-part show on Past Life Regression, yes, we can and do use PLR therapeutically, and yes, our special “John Adams” fee applies to those exploring this intriguing path to problem resolution.