I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier.

I've talked before about my America feeling, the feeling when I get when I vote,

or when I look at the Statue of Liberty, or when I listen to the song,

the farmer and the cowman from the musical Oklahoma.

I also get it when I listen to my favorite episodes of School House Rock.

I was saddened recently when I heard that Bob Dura had died.

Bob Dura was the jazz musician who created the clever and highly memorable School House

Rock cartoons that taught grammar, math, science, and citizenship to a generation of TV watching

kids like me. How I love School House Rock, it was a wonderful gift to the world.

All of them are really terrific, really fun, very catchy, and it made it so much easier to memorize

information because they're all just so memorable. For instance, the Cartoon Conjunction Junction

has meant that I have never forgotten the function of a conjunction, but my favorite of all of them

were the cartoons in the series called America Rock.

And my very favorite is called the preamble, and I have to say,

I know the preamble by heart because of this cartoon, and I found it very helpful when I was in

law school. And every time I listen to it or think about the preamble, I get my America feeling.

Here it is.

All of us in the United States should know the preamble by heart, and I'm grateful to Bob Dura

for making it so easy and pleasant to memorize those words. If you want to see the full episode

of the preamble, I'll post a link on GretchenRubin.com, and I'll also post links to the episodes where I

talk about the statue of Liberty and the farmer and the cow man. I'm GretchenRubin, and I hope this

makes your week a little happier.

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