Do you know what I discovered last week? Every once and awhile, God answers one of my begging, pleading, nagging prayers: Last week God answered two of them. I got to go to NYC and see, Hamilton: An American Musical (Yeah, Baby!), and Bill O’Reilly got kicked out of Fox News on his ass along with his sicko buddy Roger Ailes. Buh, bye boys!

Cartoon used by permission: Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
But enough of that slimy, arrogant, racist, misogynistic, lying piece of shit—O’Reilly—and “hello” to a hero and a scholar: ALEXANDER HAMILTON! (You know, that dude on the ten-dollar bill, one of the founding fathers of the United States, one of the main authors of the Federalist Papers, and our first Secretary of the Treasury.)
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47271664
So I bet you’re wondering, how did this old woman get so lucky? Well, as the kids would say, “This is what had happened”:
SOME TIMES PRAYERS DO GET ANSWERED AND DREAMS DO COME TRUE
By the author, ET
**A REVIEW**
Once upon a time there was an old woman who transitioned into retirement the same month a phenomenon was being born on Broadway and tickets into Heaven were easier to get than those to Hamilton. The Woman hadn’t yearned to see a Broadway show as much as this since Les Miz. But, alas, alack, The Man she was married to turned a deaf ear to her machinations to ransom their first born child in order to procure tickets. His only response: “If we weren’t moving—maybe—but we now live on a budget (fixed income/income fixed: say it frontwards and backwards, they both mean the same thing), and tickets to Hamilton are not an option.”
The Woman (who never takes “no” for an answer), while beseeching her God to strike Donald Trump with a lightning bolt and crater Fox News with an earthquake, snuck in a teensy-weenie prayer that he would change her husband’s heart about tickets to the musical Hamilton before Christ’s return. No answer.
In the meantime, The Woman assuaged her disappointment at not seeing the musical by reading Ron Chernow’s bestseller, Alexander Hamilton (the book the musical is based upon) and listening to and memorizing every song on the cast recording of Hamilton.

Book cover of Alexander Hamilton/Amazon.com
A year went by as The Man and The Woman settled into retirement and began to travel more. It was at that point that The Woman began to get hints that Her God might be answering her prayers about Hamilton. A short time later, and quite by accident, The Woman and The Man ended up on St. Kitts on an old sugar cane plantation train traversing the island that overlooked the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton: Charlestown, Nevis.

By Daniel Farrell – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13565315
“The current structure was rebuilt from the ruins of the house where Alexander Hamilton was born and lived as a young child.”—Wikipedia
As The Woman engaged in excited, hyperbolic pontifications to a fellow traveler sitting next to her about the history of Hamilton, her longing to see the musical before she died, and what a fantastic work of history Ron Chernow’s book is, The Woman encountered (unbeknownst to her) her first Trump supporter in the flesh. The Trump Supporter from Pennsylvania had never heard of the musical (horrors!) or the history book by Chernow (double horrors!!). In fact, The Trump Supporter confessed her lifelong disdain for history until she started reading Bill O’Reilly’s (of Fox News) five historical books about Lincoln, Kennedy, Jesus, Patton, and Reagan (quadruple horrors!!!!). The Trump Supporter asked The Woman if she had read those “wonderful works of history?” The Woman went all Alec Baldwin on her—forgot her traveling manners—as she declared that if the books O’Reilly wrote were considered “history,” then she was a direct descendant of Alexander Hamilton, and that O’Reilly’s books had been trashed by the critics as a bunch of crap. Then The Woman topped the cake with icing by stating: “Anyone who reads O’Reilly’s historical messes as truth is an idiot. Needless to say, The Trump Supporter was not amused, turned her back on The Woman while she demanded that her husband tell the “two queers” in front of the train window to move so that she could get a picture of Hamilton’s island home.
I should have realized at that moment something was afoot: O’Reilly and Alexander Hamilton in the same breath, on a slave train, in a tropical island? God was on the move—I could feel it.
Even Vice President Pence got to see the musical “Hamilton” and got schooled by the Hamilton cast during the curtain call. Yes! And his daddy (Trump) got pissed and demanded an apology from the cast. (Never!!) Everyone was getting to see Hamilton except me. Where was the love, The Woman asked The Man and Her God?

Cartoon used by permission: Bob Englehart CagleCartoons.com
Then Christmas 2016 came. The Woman’s present was the last one to be opened. In a box that looked as if it held a new Cuisinart, the woman dug deep and pulled out an envelope: Two tickets to Hamilton for April 2017—“Merry Christmas, Baby, Love ‘White and Wonderful!’”
It appears that The Man had been working, searching, planning, saving, and doing everything in his power to bless the love of his life with tickets to Hamilton. He had bought the tickets over a year ago and kept it a secret from The Woman. The Woman damn near fainted in front of the Christmas tree, as she reminded her children that this was one of the reasons she had married their father—this was the way love rolled!
Last week, The Man and Woman went off to New York City to see the show of a lifetime. Few things ever, ever meet up to one’s expectations, but Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton surpassed The Woman’s greatest expectations! It didn’t matter that Mr. Miranda was no longer starring in this phenomenon, because the replacement cast was equal (and in a couple of cases) better than the original cast. The night The Woman and The Man saw the show, Brian D’Arcy James (of “13 Reasons Why” of Netflix fame and the original King George III during Hamilton’s workshop days), and James Monroe Iglehart (the genie from Broadway’s Aladdin) made their debuts in Hamilton and brought down the house. From the moment the cast started the opening number, and the Aaron Burr character sang his opening line, chills spread up and down The Woman’s body and she and her man were transported to heaven:
“How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a
Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten
Spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor,
Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?”
Lyrics, “Hamilton” by Lin-Manuel Miranda
The Woman sent a message back to all her family, friends and fans that night: “Do whatever you have to do to see the musical, Hamilton. The hype is no exaggeration. The script is outstanding, the singing is superb, the choreography is brilliant, and the message is transformational. Beg, borrow, steal (do the time [just kidding], oh hell, it would be worth it!), but you must see this show. It will change your life! Lin-Manuel Miranda is a genius.

Photo credit: Eleanor Tomczyk
INSPIRATIONAL “SELAH” (“AHA” MOMENT) BY ELEANOR TOMCZYK
I am discovering that prayers do get answered. While I was in NYC seeing Hamilton, O’Reilly’s career was destroyed. I can’t tell you how many petitions I’ve signed to have that man removed from the airwaves and how many prayers I’ve uttered to have his influence eradicated. I was horrified when I met that Trump Supporter in the West Indies—horrified at the stupidity she embraced based on a stupid man’s lies that she believed to be truth.
On the other hand, I was enthralled by the brilliance of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s awesome rendition of one of our forefathers’ stories. It reminded me that we are a nation of immigrants (Miranda, himself, is the son of Puerto Rican immigrants) inspired by God to do great things. And although it looks as if we are living in the gutter right now under the reign of a tyrant king, we once “turned the world upside down” as Lin-Manuel’s lyric says and did the impossible by overthrowing a stupid king and building a great nation that cannot easily be destroyed. I saw Hamilton and I came away inspired and strengthened in faith that God is hearing my prayers for the immigrant, the disenfranchised, and the powerless.

Cartoon used by permission: David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star
***
INSPIRTATION ALEXANDER HAMILTON QUOTES
“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.”—Alexander Hamilton
“The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.”—Alexander Hamilton
“There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.”—Alexander Hamilton
QUOTES COURTESY OF www.brainyquote.com

Cartoon used by permission: David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star
REFERENCES
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/05/why-hamilton-is-making-musical-history
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