One of the two visitors to this blog today (a good day, traffic wise!) came from google; apparently a curious Gainesville, Florida resident wanted to know: “was benjamin franklin a poon hound?” As it turns out, my screenplay on General Washington’s Tavern Porter (which featured Franklin as a character) comes up third on the list of google results for such a query. Score!
Of course, there isn’t much substance to my claim of poon-houndery in that post, so I figured it might be worth expanding on Franklin’s love of women. For instance, he had at least one illegitimate child, William, who Franklin blames on his tendency to consort with “low women.” I have a biography of Franklin on my shelf, and a quick look at the index shows no less than 12 references throughout the book that concern Franklin’s “flirtatious relationships” with women. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that anything illicit was going on, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire… Perhaps the several sections on his “sexual appetites” are more indicative of his love of poon.
But I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Franklin’s attitude towards women was somewhat enlightened for his time (somewhat… for his time). He seemed to truly enjoy the company of women, and while it is true that he spent a lot of time flirting with them, he also took them seriously, often discussing important issues of the day with them. Speaking of which, Franklin was obviously also an instrumental Founding Father of the nation, and, of course, he brewed beer too! (Gee, I wonder what this post will do to the search terms that lead here?)
Update: It seems I’m not the only one having fun with our Founding Fathers and the beers they make/drink. This post is brilliant and funny, and features Franklin, Adams, Kennedy and Lincoln. Certainly more substantive and accurate than my original screenplay…
Haha, nice job!