The 250th anniversary approaches

[Bill in Oregon]

It was April 19, 1775, that colonist patriots opened fire on British troops in Lexington and then Concord in response to the continuing outrages and provocations related to the enforcement of "The Intolerable Acts."
From Wiki:
General Thomas Gage was the military governor of Massachusetts and commander-in-chief of the roughly 3,000 British military forces garrisoned in Boston. He had no control over Massachusetts outside of Boston, however, where the implementation of the Acts had increased tensions between the Patriot Whig majority and the pro-British Tory minority. Gage's plan was to avoid conflict by removing military supplies from Whig militias using small, secret, and rapid strikes. This struggle for supplies led to one British success and several Patriot successes in a series of nearly bloodless conflicts known as the Powder Alarms. Gage considered himself to be a friend of liberty and attempted to separate his duties as governor of the colony and as general of an occupying force. Edmund Burke described Gage's conflicted relationship with Massachusetts by saying in Parliament, "An Englishman is the unfittest person on Earth to argue another Englishman into slavery."

If this Englishman ever gets a tattoo, and I doubt I will, that last sentence would make a wonderful candidate. God bless this nation of ours. We are heirs to a very great fortune bought for us with blood.

[Griff]

God bless this nation of ours. We are heirs to a very great fortune bought for us with blood.

And seemingly, so few of us understand and appreciate that fact!

[Paladin]

God bless this nation of ours. We are heirs to a very great fortune bought for us with blood.

And seemingly, so few of us understand and appreciate that fact!

"Yes, I spent the 200th anniversary in Germany on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

[Bill in Oregon]

Ordered a few of these to "have on hand" on the 19th.

[Ysabel Kid]

One of my favorite poems...

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept;
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

[Grizz]

some of us have been alive for nearly a third of those 250 years. it doesn't seem possible that three + generations and change have seen the sum of our history, and made that history. It's way past amazing. God Bless America. God Save the Republic.

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