Pursuit of Happiness

    ‘America is Positively Duckie.’ A man towed that sign on the Kennebec River in Maine. It was July 4th weekend. Patriotism was on display.
    Over two centuries earlier, that river was the site of tension.
    Agents of the British Crown plied the waters. They searched for big trees with straight trunks. The reason was military. Ships of the Royal Navy used those trunks for masts. When a tree was chosen, the agents stamped a seal upon it. Colonists were barred from cutting down the tree.
    This policy—hogging the best trees—raised the dander of locals. Many of them earned their living by logging. The closer a tree was to the river, the easier it was to bring lumber to market.
     When the American Revolution broke out, these colonists along the river joined the cause. They must have read those words in the Declaration of Independence:
    …all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
     And the pursuit of trees.