Gettysburg

[delivered slowly, with great solemnity, at a podium, in a stovepipe hat]

Four seasons and several months ago, our Founders brought forth in this city a new fellowship, conceived in wonder, and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created curious.

Now we are engaged in a great end-of-season barbecue, testing whether that fellowship, or any fellowship so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure without eating something.

We are met in a rear garden of that barbecue. We have come to dedicate a portion of that garden as a place of feasting and fellowship for those who gave of themselves this season, that this Magic Lab might flourish. 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 grill. The brave woman who tended it, Jeannine, who has stood here before us, has 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 Jeannine made here.

It is for us, the attendees, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which she who has tended this grill has thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from this honored grill we take increased devotion to that cause for which she gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that this food shall not have been cooked in vain — that this Magic Lab, under Felice, shall have a new season of wonder — and that barbecue of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

70 Scituate Street, Arlington. Sunday, May 17th, 2026. One o’clock. Rear garden. Bring something. Coordination forthcoming.

Felice and the Founders.

E pluribus unum. Out of many, one potato salad.