I don't subscribe to the idea that the founders or anyone else were somehow better than us and that we have to live up to their example.

If you live on Nantucket, you can't avoid its history, and 'Moby Dick' is the way most of us get into Nantucket's history.

He was born in 1741, a descendant of the Rhode Island equivalent of royalty. The first Benedict Arnold had been one of the colony's founders, and subsequent generations had helped to establish the Arnolds as solid and respected citizens.

Many of us came away from our youth thinking that the story of the Revolution was that the Americans were patriots fighting the oppressive British. It was kind of good versus evil, liberty versus tyranny. When you get into it, you find that it was much more complicated.

I follow the Patriots, but the Steelers were my first and true love. I still have a 'Terrible Towel.'

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.