Subject: A Paean to Connecticut
From: Christopher W. Thomas (creatician@poetic.com)
Host: 207-172-227-79.s16.as1.dnb.erols.com
Date: Fri Jan 29, 1999 at 12:41PM

Although it's one of the very smallest states

Connecticut did not come to the Union late
In fact -- it was just the fifth state to ratify ...
Even though the Constitution came to eye

Right here in this very state, by and by
For The Fundamental Orders were the cry
In sixteen hundred and thirty-eight written
And used as the model for a nation bitten

By the need to come together under one
And so the founders looked at things begun
Choosing to adopt this state constitution as the face
Upon which the entire nation's ... would be based

And so the United States of America then came to be
A complete democracy rooted from our state, and free
Not only was it one of the first nine to adopt the rules
But it was one of the first to abolish slavery, and all

And later became the adopted home of Mark Twain
Who lived out his years here as he rode his fame
As did Eli Whitney - the man behind the cotton gin
Who graduated Yale, and then went south to win ...

First-hand knowledge of the tedious seedpicking method
And thus, invented his gin to accelerate and make good
Later, becoming an inventor of interchangeable gun parts
Thus founding an entire industry upon mechanical art ...

As Connecticut entrepeneurs, through the years since
Have employed thousands as they followed blueprints
For submarines, helicopters, rocket and jet engines
Making this state one of the most prosperous, pending

As contracts for all kinds of things were channeled here
And Connecticut's might grew mightier thru the years
Even though it is America's third smallest state in area
It is by far one of the wealthiest, and thus - the merrier

For each and every inhabitant of this small mass of land
Wins part of the overall, just by sharing in what's at hand
And so, just as Connectict modeled the nation at the start
In some ways, it still does, by its contribution with all parts

- Tristram

© Christopher W. Thomas
12:08pm Friday, Jan. 29th, 1999