Our strange Badger connection
By adamg - Mon, 03/17/2008 - 1:50pm.
Tape lets us know that besides Massachusetts and Maine (originally part of Massachusetts), the only other state that celebrates Patriots Day is Wisconsin.
Wisconsin is also the only other place where people drink water from a bubbler.
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The holiday only a
The holiday only a government employee can love.
Or a marathon runner, or a running fan
If the weather's decent, it's an excellent day to have off.
Or a History Buff
The reenactments of the battles are amazing! What I also like is that I can take the kids to Lexington, then go to a pancake breakfast, and still make it into work for the day.
When I take the day off I enjoy all the outdoor parades and the marathon if the weather is good.
I like it more than July 4th in some ways ... it is a very meaningful holiday if you get into it.
Oh, no, a bloggy, cheesy conflict
Andy's a Badger. And he writes Wisconsin doesn't celebrate Patriots Day. Why, just in case he's been here too long, he even called his mother:
In which our poster can't leave well enough alone
Yeah, so, of course I promptly Googled
which brought me to the Wisconsin Society Sons of the American Revolution Patriots Day page:
Here is a copy of the proclamation (notice to Lexington fans: Do NOT read it; you'll only get mad at the governor of Wisconsin, and what's the fun in that?).
Ouch
Yes, my Lexingtonian heart cried a little at that. But if Menino can't get the history of his own city right, why should the governer of another state get MA history right?
What's the error?
For those of us who don't live in Lexington ... what did the Wisconsin proclamation get wrong?
Heresy!
He said the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired in Concord. True Sons and Daughters of Lexington will tell you it was fired there.
I'm in the Acton camp: I don't care, all's I know is the Concord commanders turned chicken at Old North Bridge, so the first men to die were from Acton because they were made of sterner stuff.
Shot Heard Round the World
Contrary to Emerson's "Concord Hymn," the first shot of the war, and the "shot heard 'round the world," was fired in Lexington. Most likely, it was someone who got nervous and misfired while the British captain was trying to talk the Minutemen off the field. In the reenactments, I believe the Minutemen and the British trade off on firing the shot in different years.
The day didn't get really interesting, though, until the Red Coats started heading back towards Boston. The Minutemen, now gathered from all the area towns, ambushed them in the woods near Meriam's Corner in Concord, and the British didn't know how to fight someone who wasn't just standing right in front of them.
Cheaters
My history professor always used to say that the Colonies didn't win the Revolutionary War; we cheated. Silly Englishman.
Menotomized Redcoats
I was amazed to learn that the heaviest casualties of the day were in a stretch of what is now Mass Ave from Arlington Heights to Arlington Center.
Colonists were perched in trees, in the rock formations, and in attics picking off redcoats. The British got angry about this and paused for an atrocity break - they started pulling people out and attacking them, looting, burning houses, etc.
Their intemperate anger cost them - regiments from Woburn and Danvers and points north saw the smoke and picked up the pace, catching them near where Route 60 meets Mass Ave. in Arlington Center, chasing them back to their boats.
When you watch the Marathon, where people run 26 miles in good shoes in a few hours with support, think about this: bad shoes, warm day, heavy wool coat. Rise before dawn and wade through swamps and over broken and muddy roads, get in skirmishes, turn around after nearly 30 miles, and head back under fire the entire time.
Menotomy
One of those "atrocities" is re-enacted each year at the Jason Russell House, at Jason St. and Mass. Ave. in Arlington Center.
Tough Old Buzzard Award
There is a memorial marker in Arlington Center that talks about Samuel Wittemore, a man of 80 years - very elderly by the standards of the time - who engaged and enraged retreating redcoats.
The British shot him in the face. But that wasn't enough! They also:
Beat him.
Bayonetted him.
And left him for dead.
He recovered, and lived to be 98 years old (possibly 99 - no one is sure)!
I lived in New Bedford for a
I lived in New Bedford for a number of years and Patriots Day wasn't celebrated (insofar as school closings) there. It was a decidedly "Boston" event from our stand point.
Thats because
Patriots Day falls during April Vacation.
April Vacation is local too
When we crossed into Canada from Michigan on a Chicago-to-Toronto run last April, the border guard asked us why the kids weren't in school.
That was after she jubilated in our Massachusetts license plate, pulled out a bingo marker, and stamped a card behind her.