Uncle Sam

September 13th is "Uncle Sam Day," one of the most iconic and recognizable characters in the world. Those are a couple of the nice posters I pulled from the Google stew of scary, warlike images.


The Uncle Sam story goes like this:

Sam Wilson, a meatpacker from New York, supplied barrels of meat to soldiers during the war of 1812.  To identify the meat for shipment, Wilson prominently stamped “U.S.” on the barrels.  It wasn’t long before the soldiers dubbed the grub a delivery from Uncle Sam.  As such nicknames tend to do, its popularity spread.

Well, three cheers for the mighty rich United States.  Our sister-in-law Rebecca was rescued by cruise ship and is on her way back to Florida, after a hurricane aborted vacation in the British Virgin Islands.  The situation is looking desperate down there and I feel for those still stranded and especially the poorer folks who call it home.

It will be a long time until things recover.  Ivan caused similar catastrophic damage to Grenada in 2004.  When we went to visit Amanda while she was serving in the Peace Corps on Grenada, the trauma of the hurricane was still fresh in people's memory.  A storm like that is something you probably have to experience first-hand to really appreciate, and I hope we never do.