As I write these warm thoughts, we are celebrating Presidents Day. Many patriotic thoughts come to mind on this national holiday on which we celebrate the birthdays of our first president, George Washington, and of our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln.

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC is a memorial to our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. The memorial is a tribute to greatness and is modeled after a Greek temple. It stands at the end of the National Mall, a large park in Washington DC. From its steps, one can see the Washington Monument and the United States Capitol. The Lincoln Memorial has 36 columns that represent the 36 states that were in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death. The names of the 48 states which comprise the union when the memorial was completed, are carved on the outside walls near the top. A special plaque honors Alaska and Hawaii, states which joined the Union after the memorial had been built. The Lincoln Memorial took seven years to complete. The statue of Abraham Lincoln is 19 feet tall and 19 feet wide, and it is made of 28 blocks of white Georgia marble.

Engraved on the walls are two of Lincoln's speeches. Our nation can never forget the famous words from the Gettysburg Address, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Lincoln's second inaugural address included these memorable words, "With malice toward none with charity for all, with firmness and the right as God gives us to see the right. Let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan." This year will mark the 75th year since the monument was completed. President Lincoln died on April 14th, 1865.

Warm Thoughts: It takes both the white and black keys of the piano to play the Star Spangled Banner. God bless America.

Warm Thoughts from the Little Home on the Prairie Over a Cup of Tea by Luetta G Werner

Published in the Marion Record, February 27th, 1997.

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Till next time,

Trina