Two if by Sea

I spent the weekend in Boston at a Down syndrome conference. Interesting stuff. Although I've been to Boston a few times while living in New York, it has been 7 years since I walked around downtown and the historic areas. It was really great this time and not nearly as cold as when I did it last.

This is for my western friends, seeing as though most easterners probably study this stuff for years: We walked through the Paul Revere House and struck a (good) nerve with one of the stationary guides. Seeing that we were the last group and she had no requirement to repeat her lines over and over, she grabbed maps from behind the door then proceeded to lecture on more intricacies of Paul Revere's ride than I had ever read. I was stuck in my spot and soaked it in.

Here's an interesting tidbit: Revere and Dawes would not have shouted, "The British are coming!" because they considered themselves to be British citizens. They also didn't know for certain where the British were headed; the troops were already in Boston (after the tea incident), and the main suspicion was that Samuel Adams and John Hancock needed to be warned of any troop movements. Revere himself would have put the lanterns in the Old North Church, knowing that they were visible across the water gap, knowledge he gained while working in the church as a boy. Ultimately, Revere was made famous by Longfellow's poem just prior to the Civil War, written as propaganda. He intentionally omitted mention of Dawes and the others in order to emphasize the notion that one, single individual can be historically significant.




25 minutes later and we looked back at the Old North Church.