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As we approach April 19, I thought this was an appropriate story for the list.
Posted on 04/15/2006 4:39:32 AM PDT by Pharmboy
WHO knew the Minute Man has sex appeal? My daughter, Gabrielle, 15, took one look and announced, "He's hot!"
She had a point. Strapping and rifle-toting, with a luxuriant mop of curly hair and sleeves rolled up to expose muscular arms, the Minute Man on the green in Lexington, Mass., may be made of bronze, but he looked more than capable, on the March day when we visited, of defending not only his country, but any damsel threatened with distress.
Lexington, where the Revolutionary War began, is dotted with sites made historic by real minutemen, resonant places scattered on country roads amid colonial-era stone walls and saltbox houses. Prosperous suburbanites populate its expansive newer houses and patronize the Starbucks, but this town can still fire the imagination. It makes a nice day trip for a history buff, but it's also perfect for the child or teenager who has shown even a spark of interest in the American Revolution.
Children no longer memorize the incantatory poem "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," but Longfellow's "eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five" and the battles of the 19th come startlingly alive on Lexington Common, where the first shots of the war were fired, and at the Minute Man National Historical Park a couple of miles away. Standing on a sandy path in the park where Revere was captured as he rode out to warn of the redcoat invasion, or playing the colonial-era children's game Jacob's ladder in a low-ceilinged saltbox, or watching a simulated television show about the Stamp Act — all contribute to a day steeped in history without a hint of the ponderous or didactic.
For city folk, Lexington itself, with an array of vintage houses and drivers who slow for meandering tourists, has its own charms.
(Excerpt) Read more at travel2.nytimes.com ...
They've done a wonderful job with it. Well worth a visit.
The RevWar/Colonial History/General Washington ping list.
Please freepmail me to get ON or OFF this list.
As we approach April 19, I thought this was an appropriate story for the list.
Indeed. Thanks for the link...these are the kinds of things the gummint does (and SHOULD do) whereby they prove themselves not to be completely incompetent.
Some events begin today.
On the 17th (Monday) it's best to arrive at the Common no later than 5:30AM.
We've been trying for years to make it to that. One of these days we're going to do it! :)
Great article! I remember how I cried when I first saw Concord bridge on a lovely early summer day. Nothing fancy or elaborate, or jazzed up for tourists. Just a simple bridge across a stream...
Yes...hard for an American to look at that bridge for the first time and not have a lump in his/her throat.
....and if you are that close to Boston you have to visit and board the U.S.S. Constitution, the oldest active warship afloat in the world.
You're right, we've got to do that, too :)
I would like to take a trip there.
Good to hear that there are SOME FOLKS in Massachusetts who revear (pun intended) the founding fathers.
BTW: I've never been to Lexington and Concord, although I've been practically everywhere else in Eastern Mass. Need to stop by, and not only "for the shots that rang around the world." I will also make sure to mock that PHONEY Henry David Thoreau, who lived "in the wilderness" near his mom's house so that he could have her home cooking everyday.
It really is worth the trip. I spent a day there about ten years ago. Are you back east yet?
I will be a Garden State resident as of April 29th. I'm doing the cross country drive.
I read Galvin's "The Minutemen," too, long ago. I think I bought it at the Visitor's Center in Concord. Great book. Be sure to also read "Paul Revere's Ride" by David Hackett Fischer (I'm sure you have).
Talk to everyone.
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