When this episode I'm going to talk about one of my favorite founding fathers,

somebody that having been born in Hasworth, Pennsylvania, and spent a large part of my

childhood going to Philadelphia, surrounded by Franklin, and the impact he'd made in

the world.

I've always felt that the breadth of what he did, the extraordinary range from business

person to publisher, to writer, to invent her, not just inventor in the sense of

physical things like lightning rods and bifocal glasses and the Franklin stove,

but inventor in the sense of inventing the University of Pennsylvania,

inventing the volunteer fire department, inventing the American philosophical

society. Franklin had such an extraordinary love for life, such a deep work ethic,

and such a cheerful willingness to go out and turn ideas into projects and

projects into achievements that there's almost nobody like him. There are lots

of other people who've done great things, but almost nobody has covered the

range from business to politics to diplomacy to science to invention to social

leadership that Franklin personified. And so I think he's well worth spending

some time, and he clearly is by any standard and immortal.

Of all of the founding fathers, other than George Washington who literally was

the moral strength in which America was created and really was the father of our

country, but of all the other founding fathers except Washington, the one who

most deserves to be considered an immortal was Benjamin Franklin. You can

make a case and some people will for Thomas Jefferson who helped with Franklin

to write the Declaration of Independence, who became president, but for sheer

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