Patriot's Day

For those of you who do not live in New England, you probably have no idea that today is Patriot’s Day. And, no, we’re not talking about a football team. Search way back into your elementary school history class and you might come up with the answer. Think “Shot Heard Around the World”.

I remember very clearly in my 4^th grade history book seeing in bold letters “The Shot Heard Around the World”. I thought, “Wow! That must have been some gun. Did everyone in the world really hear it?” I soon learned historians use that term to describe the start of a powerful war – war that changes history. And that is exactly what the American Revolution did.

On April 19, 1775 someone on the green of Lexington, Massachusetts fired a shot. Perhaps it was a British soldier, a man dressed in a redcoat who had marched all the way from Boston that night in order to obtain a store of munitions and gunpowder rumored to be kept in Concord. Most of the British soldiers in 1775 were sick and tired of America, the people, and the duty England demanded upon them. If they could, they deserted. Unfortunately for those stationed in Boston, desertion could be quite difficult – something akin to running away from an island as one could get into the city either by sea or by walking a cross a very narrow neck of land. It wouldn’t take much for one of them to shoot.

On the other hand, the American minutemen weren’t exactly even-tempered. Aroused from their beds late that night by Paul Revere and other riders, threatened by an invading army and tired of British tyranny – anyone of those men on the Lexington green that day could have fired a shot at a red coat. After all, what’s an easier target to see than that?

The most interesting hypothesis on that shot is that it was fired from a neighboring house. If you visit Lexington, you will find that the Green is surrounded by old, colonial homes all within easy shooting distance. Well, whoever fired that shot started something: the American Revolution.

And today is the 235^th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The beginning of the Revolution. The first in a chain of events that would lead to the birth of our grand nation under God. For the Americans would show the British that day both in Lexington and in Concord that they were not going to back down. They would have their freedom. They would send England packing. And even though it took another eight years to accomplish it all, that is exactly what happened.

And that, my friends, is the history of Patriot’s Day. It is a state-wide holiday in Massachusetts and Maine. Complete with a reenactment of the battles and march in the towns of Lexington and Concord. As for the remaining forty-eight states of this grand nation, the day will pass with hardly a moment of remembrance. And, if you ask me, that’s sad. For this nation wouldn’t have Memorial Day, the Fourth of July or Veteran’s Day if it didn’t first have Patriot’s Day. A day to remind us of what our forefathers did to give us the freedom we enjoy today.