"Ted Gittinger" wrote in message
news:wCMUb.6667$Ig5.1159@fe2.texas.rr.com...
>
> "Chas Hurst" wrote in message
> news:uMudndCcs6FZhb7dRVn-vA@comcast.com...
> >
> > "Lee" wrote in message
> > newsu36205r9afrejbkbbtu3lmfu1g4j8tnd7@4ax.com...
> > > On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 20:56:02 -0500, "Chas Hurst"
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > >Abe Lincoln did, remember Gettysburgh?
> > >
> > > No, I'm not that old. (G)
> > >
> > > Actually, the Gettyburg occasion wasn't a soldier's funeral, it was a
> > > dedication as I recall.
> >
> > I thought you weren't that old.
> > It could be construed as both a dedication and a memorial. No matter,
the
> > Address is as fine a piece of oratory as was ever spoken.
>
> I just tested myself, and discovered that the ancient grey cells still can
> summon those words verbatim. Now that is astonishing, for a man who
cannot
> remember what he had for dinner last night.
>
> I wonder if there isn't something to be said for rote learning, even in
this
> enlightened age.

Lessee, from memory:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent
a new nation, conveived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all
men are created equal. Now we are engaged in at great civil war, testing
whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to
dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and
proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we
cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this groud. The brave men, living and
dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add
or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here.

Blah blah blah, forget forget forget...

....and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall
not perish from the earth.

Not bad, since I'm reciting from memory my own performance in front of an
eighth-grade English class.

Bows, (sort of)
Rita